


Heavy in Your Arms

by kasugayamaisforlovers



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Detective AU, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kory is Gar's foster mom, Mama Kory, NSFW, Police AU, Smut in a couple chapters, dickkory - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 31,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22527322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kasugayamaisforlovers/pseuds/kasugayamaisforlovers
Summary: A story following Agent Anders and Detective Grayson on their journey to find Rachel Roth.Moreso a story of two people with intersecting lives juggling personal baggage and their evolving feelings for one another.(Massive shout out to my beta-reader, the talented dasakuryo, without whom this would not be possible! <3)
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Koriand'r & Garfield Logan & Raven, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Roy Harper/Koriand'r
Comments: 38
Kudos: 74





	1. (2017) How it is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prologue...first thing 2017

“Fuck!” shouts Dick kicking at the curb in frustration. Kory leans against the hood of their rental car and avoids looking over at him. He’s pacing, fists curled tight.

“Fuck,” he growls again, opening the driver side door. Forensics found something but by the time they process it, he'll be in Nevada on radio silence. 

“Grayson, I’ll drive,” says Kory quickly. Dick blows out a sharp breath and walks around to the other side of the car. They both remember last time. _Right_ , he thinks. He slams the door behind him, tossing Kory the keys when she’s buckled in.

They drive down the buckling asphalt in silence. Kory’s hand reaches for the radio dial, but she decides against it.

“Want me to drop you back at the station?” she asks, looking ahead.

“Where’re you going?” he replies.

“I’ve got a loose end,” she says. This is her standard non-answer. Over the years Dick’s learned that a ‘loose end’ could be case-related or personal, equally applied to getting body lotion or looking over a clue. The way she’s pointedly evading eye contact makes him think it’s personal. Ok. She’s allowed that, he reminds himself.

"You gonna be ok to handle the forensics stuff?” he asks trying for nonchalance. He knows she will be. He just wants her to talk to him before he goes.

“I'll be fine, Grayson," she says in a hard voice. "Make sure you take care of yourself," she says, softer now.

He leans back in his seat and watches weather-battered, brick houses rush by. Soon they'll be back in DC.


	2. (2015) The Raven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story begins. The case is laid out.

Dick wheels the whiteboard to the front of the room. He tapes up a map of the tri-county area and circles the last known locations of Rachel Roth. It’s a rainy spring day in DC and the meeting room is dark. Even so, neither of them has bothered to turn on the lights. Both he and Agent Anders were at the office until late last night. He watched her come in for the transfer paperwork at 7:30, as he was re-watching the blurry street camera footage of incident #4. She didn’t leave the station until 10.

“Open the second folder in that box,” says Dick to Kory as he labels the locations #1-7. Kory pulls out a thick, rubber-banded stack of photos.

“Photos of the scenes?”

“Yep.”

Kory flips through them, separating them into seven stacks, following the paper dividers between the photos.

“Jesus,” she mutters under her breath, tilting the photo. “Suspects?”

“We’ve got a couple, but the only DNA found at all 7 crime scenes belongs to our girl.” He tapes up a yearbook picture of a small girl, a middle-schooler. She’s pale, with black dyed hair, and wears a black striped sweater.

“You think a 13-year-old girl did this?” Kory scoffs, throwing the pictures onto the metal table.

“She doesn’t seem to have any connection with the victims, other than the first one, but she was at every scene,” he says pulling up a chair.

Kory crosses her arms, blazer puckering at the shoulders. “What’s the story with the first one?”

“You didn’t read the case files?” he accuses.

Kory chuckles.

“Yes, Mr. Grayson, I read the case files. I’m trying understand how DCPD is seeing this,” she responds with an icy professionalism.

Dick adjusts his tie. He’s only worked at the DC Police Department for three years, but in that time, he’s earned the respect of his peers and the captain. He hasn’t been dressed down like this since he had to investigate a case of grand theft auto involving the one of the major’s policy aids. Incidentally, Dick hasn’t taken another political case since then.

“The first victim was her foster mother, Melissa Roth,” he replies. “She was shot through the head at close range.”

“And this victim is the anomaly,” Kory says. “She’s the only one to be shot. All the others die of simultaneous organ rupturing.”

“That’s right.”

“And this is the victim Rachel has ties to.”

“As far as we know, yes.”

“But there are links between the victims,” she states, thumbing through a folder of suspects.

She pulls out photos of victims #2-5. She points to the raven tattoos found on each of the bodies with her long, purple acrylics. She’s stylish for an agent. He hasn’t had the opportunity to work with too many in his capacity as a police detective, but while he was running Gotham with Bruce—

“Do we know who these guys are?” she asks.

“They’re clearly part of the same something, but we’re still waiting on permits to search email and phone records,” he says folding his hands under his chin.

Pretty too, not that it would be professional to act on that thought, or that he would act on that thought. But she’s pretty.

“I’ve got a theory,” she smiles. Dick is intrigued.


	3. (2015) We’re gonna have a good time you and me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Early days on the job with Agent Anders and Detective Grayson.

“What’s with the briefcase?” Kory asks, pointing to the well locked metal case in the back seat. They’ve been driving for two hours and they’re only halfway there. The Pittsburg office is letting them look over some files on a different case, involving a girl that matches Rachel’s description, and the witness has agreed to come back in to talk.

“Night bag,” he says looking ahead. Kory asks a lot of questions, many of which Dick would rather not answer.

“Okay,” she sighs, reaching the conversational dead-end. She switches tactics, “so when was the last time you had a partner?” Dick immediately thinks back to Dawn, but realizes that that’s not what Agent Anders is asking. _And if you would just stay focused, you wouldn’t have made that mistake,_ he lectures himself.

“I don’t I need one,” he answers, adjusting the mirror afterwards. _How long has that green car been following us?_

“That wasn’t my question,” she says, sensing that on the map of Richard Grayson, there are many dead-ends. “You’re edgy, do I make you uncomfortable?”

That makes him chuckle. He turns to look at her: long, red-streaked black hair; deep, probing eyes; beautiful lips; a beautiful face, really; and then she’s tall, which is apparent even when she’s sitting. Does she make him uncomfortable? _She makes him something._

He smiles and looks back at the road.

“My last partner transferred,” he answers at last. “Maybe six months ago. Since then the bureau’s let me fly solo.”

“I heard you argued against being assigned another partner.”

“But I got another partner anyway, didn’t I,” he cuts. She looks at him. It’s not nice, Dick knows, but he has a habit of goading people. How people respond to stress says a lot about them. Maybe he thinks she’s got a chip on her shoulder, something to prove. He thinks she’s too pretty for this job. She _is_ too pretty for this job. She’s not bad at sniffing out a trail though. He looks at her little too long and she notices.

“We’re gonna have a good time you and me,” she smiles. “Pull over at this place, I heard they have good burgers.”

Dick throws her a bemused look but pulls into the _Rusty’s_ nonetheless.

The service is alright, but everything has a tacky, sticky feel, like it’s just been wiped down with a cleaning solution. The lighting is harsh and bright for how dreary it is outside. It’s the liminal space between dinner and lunch, but Kory and Dick aren’t the only people sitting around waiting to order. A couple of lone truckers are smattered about the place. A wideset man in his 50s lumbers over to take their order.

Kory looks at one of the truckers chomping away at a mountain of a burger and gazing into the middle distance. “Must get boring, driving all around the country by yourself,” she says, turning to look at Dick.

Dick rolls his eyes and leans onto the sticky table. “It’s a great time to catch up on an audiobook,” he responds.

“Oh yeah?” she says arching an eyebrow at him, “What kind of books do you read, Grayson?”

He opens his mouth to start when she says, “And don’t say Sherlock Holmes.”

He shuts his mouth.

“Woooow,” she laughs. 

“What was the last book you read,” he says, trying to regain ground. She thinks about that.

“ _Humans of New York._ What?” she asks, seeing the edges of Dick’s mouth curl in.

“Isn’t that just pictures?”

“The pictures have stories.” Dick laughs at that.

Their giant food comes in on a giant tray. Dick can hardly see Kory passed the towering milkshakes or mountain-esque burgers. He’s unsure how they’re even going to make a dent until Kory starts eating. He can’t help but smile, he’s always liked a girl with an appetite.


	4. (2015) Photocopies and Whiteboards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The case unfolds.

They’re in another station meeting room. It’s long past closing, but then this kind of work doesn’t really have off hours. Dick slides Kory another coffee and she catches it without looking up. _Heh._ They already make a better team than him and his previous partner did. Dick pulls the knot of his tie loose, and sits down looking at Kory. Kory’s long hair is held back with a giant tooth clip, off center, and haphazard. Dick can’t help but imagine that this is how she looks at home.

_Focus._

She slurps up the stale coffee and slumps into the metal chair, letting her long legs stretch under the table. They’ve been at this since ten this morning.

“Ok,” she says sliding a set of documents towards him. “Before I transferred, I followed these guys around. I’m pretty sure they’re part of the Cult of the Raven. They were pulled in for trespassing in the same neighborhood as the last guy.”

Dick photocopies the pictures of the cultist and adds them to their whiteboard of maps, suspects, and connections. When he was first assigned this case, it was a simple murder-missing-persons: Melissa Roth was murdered and her daughter, Rachel, was missing. Over the last couple of months, it’s gotten progressively complicated. A multitude of seemingly random people entering the fray, from an unidentifiable man who’s remains liquefied over the pavement outside a truck stop bathroom, to numerous bald and tattooed men, to a mysterious ‘Dr. Adamson’. It’s all been complicated enough that the ‘bureau’ transferred in Agent Anders. He looks over at her again. His eyes have lived on her face all day. Kory’s magnetic and they can’t seem to break free. 

Fraternization, while not strictly against the rules, is generally considered bad practice. Dick knows this. Kory melts further into her chair sending one of her long, shapely legs brushing against Dick’s leg. He sits up straighter as the electricity crackles over the hair on his arms. _Baseball. The Penguin. Gotham on Halloween._ She catches his gaze.

“The thousand-mile stare is telling me I lost you, Grayson,” she says with heavy eyelids.

“I can do this all night,” he says truthfully. He’d rather be with Kory than alone in his apartment. Her laugh turns into a yawn.

“I’m more of a morning person,” she says wheeling her watch around her wrist to check the time. “I need to get home and make sure Gar’s done his homework.” _Gar?_

“I can drive you,” he offers.

~***~

He underestimated her the first time, he won’t make that mistake again. 

"Incoming phone call from: The Nuclear Family," intones his onboard phone system. 

"Accept," he says pulling the black Mercedes into park on the side of the open road. The overhang of trees shelters the car from the wind. The night is dark and streetlights are only intermittent. He turns up his heated seat.

When the call goes through it's Dad's voice, "pleasant evening, Doctor." 

"I sincerely hope so, Dad."

"We've got her!" yells Sis from somewhere behind Dad.

"Wonderful," says Adamson, all sweetness. "I'm close to our rental home now. I look forward to seeing her."

"She'll be ready for you," assures Mom. Adamson hopes for their sake that she is. Not like last time. Adamson reflexively touches the bandage on his side.

"Mom, be a doll and double the doseage."

"Yes, Dr. Adamson."

-

“You _bitch!”_ he hisses clutching his thigh. He regrets losing control, he’ll have to pay the swear. The toaster has incinerated their toast. A shame. The burnt smell cuts through the air, grounding him in the moment. This kitchen should have a fire alarm. Unsafe…

He skitters under the table as Mom and Biff exchange heavy blows with Raven. Biff careens through the air into the row of cabinets above the counter. He hits the floor with a thud. She's capable of such power. He's never doubted the prophecy, but to see it in action is thrilling. Biff will die of his injuries if he's not seen to. He looks down at his thigh. 

The initial injury hurt, but the cocktail of drugs he's on is quite effective. Adamson yanks the butter knife from the meat of his thigh, ducks as Rachel sends a wave of undulating darkness towards him. Her drugs are wearing off. What a tricky child to prescribe for: so little with such a high tolerance. He can’t risk her running again. 

"Raven, I am not the enemy here."

She screams. That's to be expected, he supposes. He's loath to do this, but until he can have a conversation with Rachel or Raven, he must. He pulls a cross from his jacket pocket and begins to chant the old words. Raven screams but the darkness begins to subside. He will flagellate and beg forgiveness for his transgressions later.


	5. (2015) So this is about you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arguments. Things get personal.

Late fall in Ohio means it’s cold and dark. They follow the clues to a convent. They’re close to finding Rachel, he can feel it. The nuns saw her less than a week ago when there was an explosion and the girl fled into the woods. But just like the last three times, Rachel’s trail goes cold almost immediately. No footprints. No eyewitnesses. Not so much as a stray hair, nothing, until the inevitable pile of bloodless bodies turns up. Dick isn’t ready to pick through bodies today.

He and Kory are about to hop on the next flight back to DC, when local police intercept a pair of hunters on a drunk and disorderly. They claim to have seen a girl in the woods. Dick speeds them to the station, but the hunters have already been released.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” says Dick lead foot on the gas. He carries Rachel’s picture in his wallet. At first it was for convenience, so he’d always have a picture to pull out when asking witness ‘have you seen this girl’. Over time though it’s come to be a reminder of why he does this job. He’s righting wrongs. He’s finding justice. He’s making sure that kids aren’t kidnapped or trafficked or abused—alone. Rachel’s a thirteen-year-old kid, he thinks angrily, remembering the smell of popcorn and sweat and people. He shakes the thought away.

“Take it easy,” says Kory flipping through handwritten documents in a manila folder curtesy of the Walkersville police department.

“They just had to hold them for 20 minutes,” he growls. “We were _this_ close.”

“Again, relax, I’ve got their addresses right here. We can make a few house calls,” she says entering the addresses into the GPS.

The tires squeal as Dick throws the rental car into a U turn.

\--

“So this is about you?” she asks sharply, letting Dick know the correct answer before he gives it. They’re at a motel. The last-minute decision to make house calls brought them here. Dick is pressing a loose handful of ice from the hallway ice dispenser against his eye. His pants are wet from the melt off. His face has seen better days. He’s been wanting to talk to Kory for a while now, get some things off his chest. But of course, of all the conversations they could be having, they’re having this one.

“You know what I went through,” he snaps. He can’t help himself.

Kory laughs derisively. “Really? So that’s why you had to unlawfully enter the man’s house and beat the shit out of him _in front of his kid_?” she bites.

He reels back like Kory just slapped him. She’s seeing Gar. She’s seeing someone coming into her house and assaulting her like that in front of Gar. Dick hates himself in this moment. He knows where Kory’s coming from, and he wouldn’t want Gar—or any kid, to have to see that.

“That’s not fair,” he argues because Kory knows as well as anyone that the situation was different when they first got to the door. There was a very real chance they were dealing with another person that hurt Rachel. He can feel Rachel’s face frowning at him through the leather of his wallet.

“ _Life’s_ not fair, Dick. It also doesn’t revolve around _you_ ,” she snaps, finally losing her patience. “This thing you’ve been doing: the speeding, the anger, the violence. That’s about you, not about Rachel, and not about the case.”

He tries to interject. “No,” she says crossing over to him. “I can never know, how you felt when you lost them,” she says softly, “those feelings, that loss…it’s valid. But you can’t keep flying off the handle at every guy you _think_ did something wrong. We’re paid to be detectives, Dick, not fucking psychics.”

Dick jaw is clenched to popping. The weight of his eyes on Kory is palpable.

“You can have empathy without making it about you.” She sits down, suddenly too tired to stand. “You almost got us killed today...we were on his land, without a permit, and he would’ve had every right to do it.” To shoot them, she doesn’t say, with the shotgun he had pointed at Kory’s face.

Dick takes a deep breath, his anger washing away to make room for the guilt. “You’re right,” he sighs.

Kory shovels some ice into a damp washcloth and ties it closed with one of her hair ties.

“You look pathetic,” she says handing it to him gently, then she leaves for her own room.


	6. (2015) Sorry, you brought what?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Gar.

“Gar, I’m home!” Kory shouts from the front door of her cluttered but cozy fourth-floor apartment.

“Welcome home,” shouts Gar from the kitchen, just beyond the entryway of the house.

“I have Dick with me,” she calls pulling off her heeled boots. She stumbles and Dick catches her arm. Kory smiles up at him. Dick feels the heat rising to his ears. She always smells so nice and her body is so warm. Dick starts his mantra of _baseball,_ and _Penguin_ and _Gotham_ but just let’s himself have this. Just the one time.

“Sorry, you brought what?” yells Gar. Dick helps Kory up and she lingers there, inches away from his face, for a prolonged moment.

“My police partner,” she calls back, breaking the spell, and stepping out of Dick’s space. She leads Dick to the kitchen. “Detective Dick Grayson,” she says motioning to Dick, “The one I told you I was bringing to dinner?”

Gar drops the big mixing spoon into the pot of chili, springing into action.

“Hi, Dick Grayson,” he says shaking Dick’s hand. Gar looks at Kory with a face that says, ‘this is what you wanted, right?’ Kory nods, chuckling.

“Thanks for making dinner,” she says squeezing Gar into a quick hug.

“No problem,” says Gar leaning into the hug. He recoils, a little embarrassed, straightening his hair when he sees Dick watching him. The warmth between the two of them is clear. It reminds Dick of Bruce and Alfred at the best of times. It makes him smile.

“Can I help with anything?” Dick asks.

“I think everything’s about done,” answers Kory. “I’m gonna cut up some avocado and then we’ll be set.”

Dick and Gar sit at the circular, glass table. The plates and cutlery have already been laid. Kory takes her time slicing the avocado and preparing the other toppings for the chili. Gar alternates between looking at Dick and twiddling the drawstring of his green hoodie.

“So,” starts Dick, “you like…green?” Dick wants to slap himself for that sentence. Gar scrunches his face.

“It’s a good color,” Gar nods, looking around.

“Must be hard though,” Dick starts.

“huh?”

“Being green,” Dick jokes. Blessedly, Kory walks over with sour cream, cheese, green onion, and avocado in a stack atop the pot of chili. Both Dick and Gar watch on in amazement as she places everything onto the table without as much as a wobble.

“Did Dick tell you he used to work with elephants?” Kory asks Gar sliding him a bowl of chili.

“Really?” asks Gar with sparkling eyes. Dick looks at Kory appreciatively—she’s good at this. Dick leans in with a smile.

“Just one mostly, her name was Cindy. I worked with her from the time she was a baby.”

Dick regales Gar with his circus days and all the trained animals he worked with. Dick’s never been a huge fan of monkeys, but of course that’s the one that most catches Gar’s interest. Gar’s surprisingly knowledgeable about animals. _Good kid._ The chili is good too, meatless Dick notices, but good.

“Are you a vegetarian, Gar?” he asks.

“Vegan. Animals are too cool to eat,” Gar smiles. “Do you work with any animals now?”

Dick shakes his head, to Gar’s disappointment. They somehow land on movies and get into a very involved dissection of the merits of the original _Planet of the Apes_ versus the remake. It occurs to Dick at some point that Kory—his usually chatty and charming partner—has not so much as cracked a joke the whole evening. He looks over at her eating silently, eyes bright and soft and only for Gar.

By Kory’s own admission, she began fostering Gar a little over a year ago. Still Kory’s affection for Gar is clear. It sends a rush of fluttery, tickly sensations through Dick. The aura of tenderness and safety that Kory’s projecting on Gar…he feels it too. He hasn’t known Kory long, but he knows she’s good people. He knows, on a deep, fundamental level, that he can trust her. Sitting at the table with the two of them makes him think himself at fifteen sitting with Bruce. He envies Gar. More than that though, he longs to be in the light coming off Kory, fraternization be damned. He’s just not sure how to start.


	7. (2016) Starting to Notice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick and Kory start to notice things about one another. Smut warning.

Dick’s blood is racing as he weaves between ‘Mom’s’ chainsaw and ‘Biff’s bat.

This is not exactly Dick’s idea of pleasant summer night. He and Kory are supposed to be eating dinner—not a dinner date, per say, but Dick’s sure he could have finessed it. Instead their rental car was rammed off the I71 at high speeds, took about a million turns to lose their tail, and then drove an hour long detour back to the motel they originally booked for the night on their way to check out a crime scene near Kokomo.

 _I hope DCPD has insurance for this_ , he thinks, as he shoulder-checks ‘Biff’ into a closet with a crunch. ‘Mom’ is at his back again with the chainsaw. She and ‘Biff’ closing in on him. As he turns, he sees ‘Dad’ launch Kory through a wall—time and sound stop. He tries to break free, but he’s cornered. It’s a stupid move, and he’s knows he’ll incur the wrath of all three conscious ‘family members’, but he’s got to get to Kory. He dips low, kicking ‘Mom’s’ feet out from under her and toppling her, momentarily, onto ‘Biff.’

He would expect a civilian to be knocked out cold from the force of that collision, yet something moves under the crumbling plates of drywall. If Bruce was here, he would tell Dick that his feelings for Kory are impairing his judgement. Benefit of the doubt: adrenaline, training, and the fact that Kory was almost in this guy’s weight class could factor in. But…

Kory stands up, shaking the white dust from her hair. From the newly punctured hole in the wall, Dick can see ‘Sister’ crawl to her feet in the hallway. She whirls her cable lasso and loops Kory from behind. Kory somehow finds the momentum to tug the young woman forward, back into the room, and hurl her at ‘Dad’.

Dick’s positive that this—what Kory’s doing—isn’t part of the training packet for federal agents.

She can definitely fight, but it doesn’t seem like any formal training he’s ever seen. There’s something scrappy, instinctual, about the way she moves. And she’s _strong_. If Bruce was here, he’d tell Dick to focus on the fight. Dick dodges the swing of ‘Mom’s’ chainsaw as he watches Kory shove ‘Dad’ several feet away from her. _Really strong._ Is she a metahuman? Last time he was in Central City with Bruce, Barry was telling them about some kind of radiation blast that turned a portion of the citizenry into—

‘Biff’ bats Dick’s legs out from under him and he falls to his knees with a crack. _Focus._ Dick eyes the metal briefcase holding his Robin suit. If he could get to his telescopic Bo staff, he wouldn’t have to be hand to hand with these weapon-wielding crazies. But that would out him immediately to Kory. ‘Biff’ hits him in the back. _Ow Fuck!_ Dick rolls away from the next blow of the aluminum bat and it rings out against hard floor.

“That’s it!” yells Kory and the next thing Dick knows, a gout of flame erupts from her. The only thing left of ‘Dad’ is a pile of ashes. ‘Sister’ and ‘Mom,’ thrown like ragdolls, lay limp on opposite sides of the blast. The walls are on fire. Fire alarms blare. ‘Biff’ runs at them again and now Dick sees Kory glowing orange, an embodiment of flame. The shock that sweeps over him almost makes him too slow to stop her.

“Kory!” he screams, reaching for her extended hand. She changes back to the Kory he’s familiar with. Her eyes are confused, vulnerable. She looks scared, not of the situation clearly, because she’s not hesitating to fry ‘Biff’ but—

‘Biff’ reaches them, and Dick manages to land a kick to his face.

“Let’s go,” he says grabbing her arm, in one hand and his briefcase in the other. He pulls them from the room at a run. 

\--

They manage to drive in silence letting the radio do the talking. It’s not that Dick’s never seen anyone die in front of him. He wishes he’s seen less death. He looks at her as she drives. Pupils normal. No shaking. Breathing level. She’s fine: He didn’t suspect Kory of being so ruthless, or powerful.

“Kory,” he starts.

“Mhm?” she asks dialing down the radio. He doesn’t really know what to say. They’re a little past Bruce’s ‘no killing’ rule. Still…

“Kory, can you control your…the,” he mimes her fire powers.

“Starfire,” she says.

“What?” _Is that her name?_

“Yes, I can control the starfire.”

 _That would be an excellent name... Focus._ Dick sighs.

“Kory…”

“Save it, Grayson,” she says slowing the car for a turn. “I know you think I shouldn’t’ve done it.”

“You’re right. You shouldn’t’ve killed him,” he huffs. _How is she so calm about this?_

“It wasn’t my first choice, but I did what I had to to avoid a hatchet to the face.”

He sits with his hands in his lap, no sure how to argue that. He’s not sure what to think about any of this. The vulgar part of his brain is glad that he doesn’t have to inform the family… He shuts up for the rest of the drive and Kory’s not offering anything.

Looking between Kory and the road, everything about her suddenly makes it obvious that she’s not a human. The dappled green and black eyes, that should’ve given it away. The jewelry. The height and beauty. Even knowing that Kory is…whatever she is, doesn’t lessen Dick’s attraction to her. Weirdly, _guiltily_ , even knowing that she’s capable of the merciless incineration of another person isn’t lessening the depth of his crush on Kory. There’s something wrong with him. He stares out the window, letting the cold from the windowpane draw the sense back to his head.

She pulls into the parking lot and pulls out the keys. Dick starts to get up but she puts a heavy hand on his arm.

“I,” she says pausing for an uncomfortably long time looking into the middle distance looking for the right words. Her hand is hot on Dick’s arm. “I have not been honest with you about my role in this case.”

Cryptic, thinks Dick, but actually, given today, not that surprising. He gently peels her fingers off of his arm and nods for them to go in.

“You’re not really a detective, are you?” he asks from the edge of the bed in the motel in Kokomo, Indiana as Kory leans against the TV stand.

Kory looks surprised that that’s the question Dick decides to go with. “Technically speaking, no, but I think I’ve been pretty helpful on this investigation.” She twirls her long hair around her fingers.

Dick’s eyes are flashing like he’s speedreading through his mental notes. “How long have you been looking for Rachel?”

“On Earth? About a year, but then I also had several months while I was flying here.”

Dick’s mouth falls open. “While you were…flying to Earth. So...you’re really…I mean you’re from,” he points up.

“Is this the Dick Grayson version of ‘did it hurt when you fell from Heaven’?” she teases. Dick scoffs.

“Look, I’m just trying to understand what you’re telling me,” he says defensively. Kory looks at him and closes the blinds.

“You wanna know, what I am? Ok,” she says and then she lights up. Her black skin glows orange, her eyes singe green, her hair reddens rippling behind her like the tail of a comet. She’s flying.

Dick is floored. “ _Holy shit_.”

She floats back down, reverting to her human colors.

“I’ve shown you mine,” she says. She knows Dick is hiding something too. It’s obvious to her, he realizes. They’ve never overnighted anywhere without him turning up the next morning with inexplicable cuts and bruises. At first, she thought he might be on the bottle or in some kind of fight club—she’s alluded as much, much to Dick’s indignance. He finds out later, that his cardinal mistake was taking the police scanner from the car. That and apparently, she tailed him once, or tried to, she lost him when she hopped a fence. Didn’t want to fly to chase him, go figure.

“Have you ever considered going by Starfire?” he asks, starstruck. She laughs in a way that implies “I’m still not considering it.”

When Dick finally manages to peel his eyes away from her, he pulls the ever-mysterious suitcase towards himself and presses the thumbprint-locked button.

“I’m Robin,” he says with a gravitas must find very amusing gauging by the sparkle in her eyes. It makes Dick annoyingly self-conscious.

“You have to put on the suit,” she says giddily.

Dick has never felt more stupid than pulling on his Robin suit in waning sunlight of this roadside motel.

Kory’s shaking her head with a mirthful grin, “It’s pretty sexy. I like the cape.”

“And we’re done,” he says turning to change back out of the suit.

~ * * * ~

He can’t believe he knows an alien. He knows Superman, sure. But that’s different. Clark is Clark. Clark is like 90% Kansas, 10% Krypton. Kory is…everything. Spaceship. Alien language. Glowing eyes. Flying. Dick has a million questions, but also wants to retain a little bit of his pride, and so refrains from going full 20-questions. Kory’s, no doubt, aware of his feelings for her. Not that they’ve talked about it, but if he starts fawning now, he’s sure he’ll never hear the end of it.

“Is your spaceship around here?” he asks with the same tone one might use to ask, ‘how’s the weather.’

“You wanna see my spaceship, Dick Grayson?” She giggles like it’s an innuendo. His ears burn.

“Let’s go see it,” she says softly. Dick swallows. They are technically on lunch break, but Dick didn’t expect them to just up and leave the station.

They drive through town to the industrial district. Left for the elements since the early 90’s, the tin roofs of the warehouse buildings are rusty. The whole site is dilapidated. Dick keeps looking around thinking he’s about to run into a glassy flying saucer. He wouldn’t put it past Kory. Her tall, heeled boots click against the concrete as she struts ahead. Dick watches more than he should.

She walks into a huge, empty warehouse and pulls out something that looks surprisingly like a key fob. Dick’s eyebrow scrunch into a look of confusion. There’s nothing here but the building’s support beams. _Does she have some kind of underground star-cave?_

Purple lights materialize out of nowhere scanning him and Kory. A boyish grin dances over his face. He’s elated: he can’t believe he’s about to see a spaceship! The ship flickers into view mere feet in front of him. _Woah._ Its drawbridge entrance descends, and Kory walks up like it’s no big deal. It’s probably not a big deal for her, Dick reminds himself.

The ship’s interior is all rounded rectangular shapes, wall-fixed control panels, and corridors. And then there’s the cockpit. Dick is having a nerd-gasm. He feels a childish need to press all the buttons and toggle all the switches.

“Do you want the tour?” Kory asks watching him flit between wall consoles.

“Sure,” he says catching himself as Kory looks at him and standing up straighter.

“That’s the ventilation control,” she says, biting back a smile as she watches his hovering fingers. He shoves his hands into his brown leather jacket. He nods, fascinated.

“This is the ships’ main computer,” she says, pointing at the roundtable-looking-thing in the middle of the cock-pit corridor. They walk around the impossibly large ship for several minutes. No matter how many times Dick covertly pinches himself, he cannot believe that Kory: his police partner, his friend, his Kory, is the owner of this spaceship—is an alien. He watches the casual, graceful way that she drifts from room to room. She’s beautiful. She was other-worldly to Dick even before he knew she was literally from another world.

 _God, those legs_ , he thinks watching her round a corner.

Kory points out an exercise chamber, a bathroom, a galley, storage rooms, and pantries.

“And what’s this room for?” asks Dick pointing to a sealed metal door.

Kory holds her hand up, palm out. The door opens at the center, disappearing into the wall.

“This is my bedroom,” she says with dark, lidded eyes as she steps backwards into the room. Dick is magnetically drawn after her.

“Is it?” he breathes. She nods. He bridges the space between them, leaning in slow, hoping that he’s reading her right. Kory’s eyes flicker close. Heat rises through him, limbs strung tight. He wants her. God, he wants her. But he forces himself to slow down, to savor this.

His nose brushes the side of her face, breathing in her scent, waking the nerves along his neck. Kory shivers at his touch. Her hand finds his, twining their fingers together. Her lips graze his and the heat of her exhale takes his breath away. He tilts his chin up to catch her kiss. The taste of her open mouth is more potent than any alcohol. He takes a step into her, crashes his body against hers, catching her against him. Her breasts are soft against the muscles of his chest, and for a second he forgets how to breathe. Their hands flash apart. He sinks a hand into the flesh of her hip, pulling. His other hand weaves through the silky drape of her hair to the back of her head. Her hands are on either side of his jaw. She’s grinding against him, kissing his mouth.

His hands are moving on their own now. Fingers splayed wide, he traces her body from her neck, over her shoulders, down her spine. Kory rolls her hips into him, he tugs her back every time she opens space between them. She’s doing a dizzyingly good job of coaxing up his erection. He sucks in a ragged breath as she brushes against him again. She throws his leather jacket to the floor.

 _Where is the bed in this room?_ The rounded edges of storage units slope out of the wall, but there’s no bed in sight. Kory is kissing along his jaw. He rotates her with him darting his eyes around the room. _Bed. Bed?_ He will fuck her against this wall if he has to but—

Kory’s soft lips whisper against his ear and he stumbles backwards. He needs some kind of surface.

“Kory,” he grunts. Her nails rake his scalp and he twitches with pleasure.

“Dick,” she growls. If he wasn’t hard before, he is now. He kisses her again, harder, his tongue flicking against hers. He stumbles them into the ship’s equivalent of a dresser.

“Where’s your bed?” he gasps between hungry kisses. The friction of his clothes is getting to be too much. He fumbles for the zipper he felt on the back of Kory’s form-fitting top. He peels the leathery black shirt from her with the intensity of a child unwrapping a snack cake. He finds her breasts bare beneath. Dick is kissing down her neck.

“It,” she starts distractedly, “folds into—into the wall.”

He’s sucking on the bare skin below her collar bone. Licking down her breast. Kory mewls softly and feels Dicks fingers claw into her hips.

“Unfold it, please,” he says, his nose charting a trail ever lower. Kory cards through his hair. He yanks the button on her pants open. Kory giggles and pushes herself off the dresser with her arms around his neck. She gives him a quick kiss before untangling herself from him and walking to the wall. She opens her palm to it. The bed that unfolds is a lot bigger than Dick expected.

“Where were we?” Kory purrs, pulling off Dick’s shirt. Dick grins.

“I think,” he says picking her up and walking them to the bed, “we were here.” He topples them onto the bed. Kory is giggling as he pulls off her _very_ tight pants. She exhibits considerably more skill in helping him out of his jeans and boxer briefs.

Her panties intrigue him. The blue makes the dark skin around the material look that much more delicious. He drags his tongue down her stomach, hand snaking between her legs. Kory gives a lusty sigh. Her leg wraps around him and she grapples him onto his back. _Fuck she’s hot._

The friction between her blue panties and his dick rattles his brain. He lets out an embarrassingly loud moan. Her eyes are hot on his. He bucks up against her and can feel how wet she is. He yanks at her panties and they roll for an uncoordinated moment as she pulls them off. Dick’s fingers part her lips, gently stroking her wet heat. _Condom. Where are my fucking pants?_

“Please, Dick,” she begs. She doesn’t have ask twice, but he does need to find his pants first. He scrambles off the bed. “What’re you doing?” she whines.

Dick rolls on the condom and climbs back on the bed. “Just uh-” and then he follows the line of her hand and gets distracted. He swallows hard. He wants that. Everything about that. _All of that_.

He crawls to her, his fingers taking over for hers. She kisses him deeply, like she needs him. Like she’s wanted nothing more than him for a long time. Her fingers stroke him, thumb rolling over his throbbing head, until Dick feels like he might explode. She arches into his dripping fingers.

He pushes her legs open, making room for himself. He only manages to tease his cock against her for a second before he needs to plunge into her. Kory sucks in a breath as he disappears inside her. Her eyes smolder as he pushes deeper, slower. His head is swimming as he sets a slow rhythm for them.

He watches Kory’s face contort with pain and pleasure. The smooth “o” of her whimpering mouth makes him string together nonsensical profanities. Her hips snap into him and his senses blur into a loud pulsing. His world dissolves into the thrumming of his heart, the pulse of his cock between her tight walls. Dick falls forward swept into the heady swirl of his orgasm. Kory is bucking him insistently. He just has the wherewithal to rub circles over her clitoris. The sensation of her subsequent violent fit of shaking is almost too much. Dick is gasping like he’s just ran a marathon. Kory is stuttering words he doesn’t understand.

His heart pounds in his ears as he gently pulls himself free, nuzzling her nose with his.


	8. (2016) Nonlethal Force

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A romantic relationship begins.

Kory is really getting tired of bleeding and getting thrown into walls. She straightens herself up as she pushes herself off the pavement. It’s late Tuesday night, and the measly ‘downtown’ center of this town isn’t very busy, even during rush hour. Somehow every time Dick and Kory think they’ll be laying low for a night, the night turns into a capes and tights showdown. All Kory wanted to do was retrieve a file from her storage locker.

_Who the fuck are these people?_ Blood is welling out of her left arm, soaking her shirt to the elbow. She’s starting to feel lightheaded. Her arm tingles—and not in a good way. She shouldn’t be bleeding at all. If she was fighting like a true Tamaranean, she wouldn’t be bleeding.

‘Sister’ flicks her cable lasso at Kory. She grabs it and ‘Sister’ drags her bodily across the carpet. ‘Biff’ brings his bat down hard aiming to cave in Kory’s chest. She narrowly rolls out of the way, the momentum pulling ‘Sister’ off balance enough for Kory to drag her to the floor. ‘Biff’ slams the bat into Kory’s bleeding arm. Kory yowls in pain.

“Motherfucker!” she roars, scuttling away and yanking the lasso after her. ‘Sister’ won’t let go.

The lasso cuts into the meat of Kory’s hands. The pain is sharp, but Kory’s closing in on her. Kory lands a heavy kick at the girl’s knee and the two of them grapple.

Robin roundhouse kicks his way out of the ‘parent’s’ attack.

“You ok?” he shouts. Even under the mask, Kory can see that his eye is purple and swollen.

“No,” Kory huffs, ‘Sister’ thrashing between her legs. Kory heaves the lasso from the girl’s hands and settles it, with a jerk, under the girl’s chin.

“Kory,” Robin yells, “duck!”

Kory ducks as knife-edged ‘R’ shaped shuriken meets someone gasping behind her in a wet thwap.

“I thought you said ‘non-lethal’,” she grunts slowly asphyxiating ‘Sister.’ She’s trying to understand these artificial limits Dick has set out for their combat. In over a decade of fight training, Kory has always relied on her starfire. Theoretically she can calibrate the level of energy she shoots, but practically speaking she’s never had to—on Tamaran you fought to kill.

“He’s not dead,” Robin replies taking the butt of new ‘Dad’s’ hatchet to the stomach and crashing backwards into his Porsche. He stumbles to his feet.

Kory pulls the cord until ‘Sister’ stops moving, unceremoniously rolling the girl’s body around as she ties her in her own lasso. ‘Biff’ is slowly rising to his feet behind her, Kory walks over, and clutching her aching arm, stomps her foot into his chest with as much force as she can muster.

“Kory!”

“Stop backseat driving, _Robin!”_

‘Biff’ tugs Kory’s foot and she falls forward scraping open her knees and her already cut palms. Kory grunts. She could finish this now. It would only take one quick blast of starfire and Kory’s been in the sun all day. She growls in frustration.

Robin blocks ‘Mom’s’ chainsaw with a metallic whine as the saw sputters and grins against the metal Bo staff. ‘Dad’ takes a hatchet to the windshield of Dick’s Porsche and starts dousing it with gasoline. Robin takes a knee to the groin and a series of head butts from ‘Mom’ as she struggles to free her chainsaw.

Kory respects Dick. He’s a skilled fighter, an entertaining conversationalist once you get him started, and an attentive lover. All good traits. But he’s so bottled off. Even his fighting style is based on his mind rather than the adrenaline and passion of a true war dance. This is his planet, however, and it’s governed by the laws of his people. Kory’s sat through enough interplanetary diplomacy lessons to understand that. It just seems that the rules here are set up to make her weak.

‘Biff’ lands his bat into Kory’s back with a hollow thud as she fails to climb back to her feet. She falls back to her hands and knees with a whimper. ‘Biff’ cracks something deep in Kory’s shoulder. The pain is like a thick liquid and Kory is struggling to come to the surface for air. Her body is getting hotter as her cells try to recover. ‘Biff’ slams another blow into her, limping behind Kory as she crawls. Kory rolls unto her back and musters the last of her energy to pull of cyclone of starfire to her hands. She could blast ‘Biff’ straight to hell, non-lethal force be damned.

Her fists shake, the energy of her power aching to be released. She looks at Robin—Dick—being pummeled in kicks and fists and swings of hatchet and chainsaw. ‘Biff’ slams the bat into her and Kory lunges up, ignoring the pain, and yanking the boy down by his shirt. The blood is dancing through her now, hot and racing. She doesn’t need starfire to beat this weak, fleshy human. She didn’t need starfire to escape the Psions, she thinks bending the aluminum bat in half. She didn’t need starfire to win the trials, she reminds herself blocking ‘Biff’s wild limbs with thrashes of her own.

“Kory!” yells Robin thumping the butt of his staff into side of ‘Dad’s’ face. Then everything explodes in a gout of flame.

The blast hurls Dick’s body into the glass façade the adjacent office building with a crunch. The glass bites into his suit as it cracks under the force of the collision. He falls limply to the pavement. He catches the last flicker of streetlights before his vision tunnels to black.

The next thing Dick remembers is feeling a nauseous head-rush. He’s upside down. It’s warm. He can smell Kory’s hair. The heavy garage door creaks and whines as it slides up on aged motors. He’s pushing against the leaden feeling pressing in on him, pulling his eyelids shut. He passes out again, heavy in her arms.

\--

“Where are we?” he groans, body stiff and sluggish as he stands. _Is he laying on a table?_

“Slow down, Dick,” says Kory positioning herself under his arm to support his weight. “We’re in my storage unit.”

“Kory, what happened?” Kory releases him. She’s wearing haphazardly knotted bandage on her arm. Her outfit is covered in a crust of pavement, dirt, and blood. Her hair is sweat matted and frizzed.

“Your car blew up,” she says with a tired, frustrated look. Dick takes a long, steadying breath.

“I liked my car,” Dick whines.

“Well, ’Dad’ set your Porsche on fire while I stopped ‘Biff’ from beating my brains into the pavement.”

“You didn’t…”

Kory leans over the table looking a Dick with a hard face and then jabs the bruise on his left rib cage. He winces. Let that be his answer, thinks Kory.

“Kory.”

“ _Dick.”_

Dick rolls his eyes, understanding at last. He starts to move but groans and stumbles back against the table in the middle of the room for balance.

“You know that car was a gift?”

“So I’ve heard,” she says, walking around to him and unzipping the back of his suit.

“What’re you doing?” he asks, a red blush crawling up his neck. _Humans are so shy…_

“I can’t tell if it’s your neck or the back of your head that’s leaking like a faucet.”

Dick makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a gag.

~* * *~

He’s sitting in the cockpit of Kory’s ship, feet hovering just over the floor. Kory leans over him, her hair washing over his shoulders, as she points at symbols and describes their meaning. Dick’s become intimately familiar with this ship. He can find any room he wants, even in the dark. He knows the command to get into the ship. He can even adjust the ventilation. It’s clear to him though, that he won’t be flying this thing _any time_ soon.

“Rotate the joystick to the right,” she commands. Dick pulls the joystick to the right and the ship jolts beneath them to a metal on metal grinding noise. Dick clenches his teeth. “Rotate—twist, not pull,” she laughs, swatting his hand of the joystick. She extends her other arm over his, tapping the buttons on the front of the armrest, righting the ship. She twists the right-hand joystick and another menu pops up on the display.

“What’s that,” he asks pointing to an icon on the edge of the display and turning toward her. His nose brushes her cheek. He didn’t realize she was this close to him. Blood rushes to his face.

“That,” she says playfully squishing her cheek against his, “is the multispectral scanner.” His lack of proficiency in learning the ship’s controls might have to do with the abundance of Kory-related distractions. When she’s this close to him it’s hard to focus on anything other than how good she smells or how nice it might feel if she was straddling him in this flight seat.

“You still paying attention, Grayson?” she teases standing up straight, hands on her hips. Dick swivels the chair to face her.

“Multispectral scanner,” he parrots, tracing her curves with a lascivious smile. Kory giggles, rolling her eyes.

“You have a shorter attention span than Gar with his math homework.” Dick hops out of the control seat, shooting Kory eyebrows. Kory is laughing now, moving slowly toward the door, her eyes on him. Dick takes a quick step to the left and Kory dodges right. He chases her around the room like a school boy, finally snatching her up in a spin. Dick’s kissing any skin he can get his mouth on, enjoying Kory’s silly wiggling as she half-heartedly tries to free herself.

He jokingly nips at her arm, her face still too far away to kiss. She leaps out of his arms. They wrestle around and she pins him to the cold, metal wall of the cockpit, ‘I win’ written all over her face. Dick pushes his lips into an exaggerated pucker.

“When did you get so silly?” she asks, laughing and kissing him.

He hooks his leg behind hers pulling her off balance and freeing his arms. He wraps her tight, kissing the breath out of her. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt this light, this carefree.

She tries to kiss him back when he abruptly breaks from her.

“Wait, it’s a multispectral scanner.”

“What?”

“Rachel’s energy signature. We’ve never looked at it, but we know it’s opening dimensional rifts. He untangles his hold on her and walks to the display. “This could be how we find her, Star!” he exclaims using her nickname.

Kory takes a minute to catch up and then takes a pained breath.

“Dick,” she says turning to him. “The scanner, the sensor arrays, all of the equipment that has satellite links, got fried when I entered orbit.”

“Well then let’s fix it,” he says matter-of-factly.

Kory blows out a breath, “Ok…let’s fix it.”

Dick nods and turns back to her, his face softening. “You’ve got a little something-“

He plants a sloppy kiss on her nose and Kory giggles.


	9. (2016) A Death in the Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick reels with the death of a loved one. Kory tries to hold things together. We see what Rachel's been up to.

The stove is old and the electric coils slant at angles very unproductive to making an evenly cook omelet. Nonetheless, Dr. Adamson cooks on. The pepper in the cupboard is pre-ground and boxed. He sighs, these people have no taste. Rachel screeches her wooden chair forward in clumsy jerks. She’s going to scratch the floor, he thinks. Glancing at it, he grimaces to find that the floor is already dirty and scratched. 

“Be a good girl and stop that,” he says in an even, authoritative tone. Rachel makes a muffled squeak against the duct tape on her mouth. 

“I’m making us a nice brunch, and if you show some manners, we can share it. If not, I’m afraid you’ll have to sit tight.” She staggers forward in the chair, it hits a divet and collapses to the floor. Dr. Adamason tuts. His phone rings.

“Hello,” he chirps, all manufactured cheer. As he listens to the chatter on the other end his smile tightens into a flat line.

He flips the omelette, one edge deeply browned the other pale yellow. 

“Mmm, no I’m afraid we’ve already extended your family a second chance,” he says, steely cold. 

“Prepare to be decommissioned,” he returns the phone to his pocket.

He scoops the omelette into the garbage. 

“Change of plans, Raven.” He rights Rachel’s chair. He cheeks are so sharp, much sharper than when he first met her. They were round and flushed when he drove alongside the sidewalk. She’d been running. It was raining, she was wet. Her black hair clinging to her skull, black clothes hanging off her like she’d been dredged from the bottom of a pond. So alive though, this puny little girl —cheeks flushed, wild eyed, breath burning through the cold.

This child, the chosen one, the doorway. 

Looking at her now, Adamson felt almost sorry. Rachel’s eyes were so sunken he could barely discern their blue. If she would agree to be less difficult, he wouldn’t have to be so rough. He sweeps the hair from her face and she growls and jerks.

_Too bad._

-

There're more astute than he gave them credit for, these Gotham PD people. Though he suspects this "routine stop" has more to do with the caped birdman he ran into last night, than anything these officers came up with. Still, destiny holds that darkness will come for this Earth. _He_ will come for this Earth and devour it, remake it in his divinity. We will all be clean. 

He pulls over calmly. They have nothing on him. He lets the mustachioed officer take his license and registration. Returning it, the officer suggests Adamson come with him downtown. Lucky me, thinks Adamson. They won't find Rachel, not where he's hidden her. 

~***~

After months of cat and mouse, Kory and Dick are finally interrogating Dr. Adamson. Twenty minutes in, Officer Jonesy steps into the room and pulls Dick into the hallway. Kory sees immediately that something is wrong.

When Dick comes back, he’s pale, off balance. Kory stands up and they go back out into the hallway.

“Talk to me Grayson,” she says softly.

He looks up at the ceiling sucking in his breath.

“I need to go home,” he says, voice shaking.

Adamson has been on the lam for months. Everything they have on him, they gathered via their masks. They don’t have enough over the table evidence to hold him. If they release him now— _when_ they release him, he’s gone again. Kory feels the anger rise in her chest at the thought. It’s clear though that whatever just happened, Dick can’t do this right now.

“I’ll finish this,” she says curling her pointer finger around his, keeping her movements small as not to incur the roaming eyes of the other staff. She would hug him, but she knows Dick well enough to know that it would only embarrass him here. _Humans and their propriety._ He takes a shuddering breath and nods.

“ _Later_ ,” she says.

He nods again, heavy eyebrows, blurry eyes.

Kory interrogates Adamson for hours, but he’s hell-bent on silence and opaque statements about destiny and the fate of the world. _Useless!_ He won’t admit his ties to the ‘family’. He won’t admit he knows anything about Rachel. At one point Kory nearly punches him in frustration. She needs Dick to help her with this. Her fingernails dig into her hands, she knows that this will end with her letting Adamson walk back out there. Back to keep hurting Rachel.

She wants to burn him to a crisp. 

-

Dick doesn’t show up later. Not at her apartment, not at the ship. He’s not answering texts or phone calls. She takes a cab to his house, but he isn’t there either. He doesn’t come to work the next day, and she can’t leave early to look for him because the coroner just finished reviewing another organ rupture case from Indiana. She’s off two hours past closing and then roams their usual midnight patrol route looking for him. Eventually she goes home, because she knows Gar needs dinner and she’s exhausted.

“—hey,” says Gar waving a hand in front of Kory’s face, making her sit up.

It’s late and the orange glow of streetlights filters in through the blinds of the living room.

“Hey Gar,” she yawns, pulling her fuzzy pink blanket around her.

“Are you ok?” he asks sliding onto the couch next to her. “You’ve just been sitting here looking out the window for like an hour.”

“I’m worried about Dick,” she says, watching the rain fall in lazy drops.

“Why? What happened to him?” asks Gar, pulling off his over the ear headphones and folding them in his lap.

“I don’t know,” she says turning to Gar, “that’s why I’m worried. I haven’t seen or heard from him in over 36 hours.”

“Maybe he went on a case?” Gar offers, putting a warm hand on her thigh.

Kory shakes her head.

“Maybe he needs to be Robin somewhere?” Gar says.

Kory gives a sad smile and leans her head onto Gar’s shoulder. Gar hugs into her. _Maybe he needs to be Robin._ That’s probably it, thinks Kory. Dick probably needs to let off some steam by being Robin. He’s strange like that. He’ll push everything down deep inside himself and let it explode when he puts on the mask. Kory shakes her head. He could just stop swallowing his feelings. _Stupid._

“Gar, when you feel upset you know you can talk about it, right?” she asks sitting up to look at him. He gives her a confused face.

“Yeah I guess.”

“Don’t guess. Don’t be afraid or ashamed to feel, not around me or anyone. Our emotions do not make us weak.”

The appeal is perhaps too intense for Gar. He averts his eyes.

“You found out about the poetry thing?” he asks sheepishly. _The what?_ Gar looks up at her and then back at his lap, fidgeting with his headphones. “It’s stupid.”

She scoops Gars chin into her hand and looks at him. He looks up at her, red flush coming to his cheeks.

“It was a minor disaster,” he says quietly. “We were supposed to write a dumb poem about one of our heroes. At first I was gonna write about Batman, but then I thought—I literally know Robin and he’s super cool…and then I thought..” his voice hitches, “and then I thought about you and my parents and…” He buries his face in his hands taking a sharp breath.

“You miss them,” she says. “I miss my parents too.”

She hugs Gar and he hugs her back. She can feel the pain of Gar’s loss, but also his overwhelming love. The intensity of his emotion makes her feel less homesick than she has been in while. Eventually he pulls away from her and wipes his eyes. He smiles a little.

“Sorry,” he says. Kory shakes her head.

“There’s no need to be sorry,” she says giving his arm a playful pinch. “Besides even on this planet, that’s what family’s for.”

Gar smiles at that.

“That makes me wanna watch _Lilo and Stitch_ ,” he grins.

Kory tells him to put it on and they make it halfway through before Gar passes out. Kory wraps him in her blanket. It’s 3am. Still no sign of Dick. Kory throws together Gar’s lunch and writes a note for him. She goes to bed right after.

Kory wakes up four hours later to go to work. She checks her phone and only has one message from Gar. It’s a selfie of him enjoying his fruit leather. Kory chuckles, but her mood doesn’t last long. The office is boring and beige without Dick. Beyond that, Kory’s becoming increasingly nervous that Dick is out hurting himself somewhere. In their time together Dick has mentioned a small handful of people that he’s close to. She’s already called Gotham, he’s not there. Beyond that are his friends Donna and Wally, but she doesn’t have a direct way to contact either of them, not to mention that neither of them live in town. Would Dick just leave DC without a word? He has to be doing something as Robin. He would signal if he was in trouble. Kory knows that. Plus, he’s officially taking sick leave.

Kory looks down, realizing that she’s stapled her stack of paper six times too many. She huffs, tapping her foot in agitation. She looks over at the captain’s office: the door is closed. No one will notice, she thinks. One of the funny things about Earth is, as long as you act like you’re doing what you’re supposed to, very few people will question you. Kory puts on her blazer, matter-of-factly, glancing down at her wristwatch like she’s running late. She comes in and out of this office enough that no one even bats an eyelash anymore. It’s almost 4:30 anyway. She calls Dick on the special phone again. Nothing. _That’s it,_ she thinks. She’s done looking at this problem like Dick. It’s time to tackle it like Kory.

When she’s sure no one can see her, she launches into the air and begins to fly. The rain blows in on misty curtains, buffeting Kory this way and that. She retraces their police route, their nighttime patrol route, Dick’s two favorite bars, the one sporting good store he ever frequents, and the warehouse where she keeps the ship. Nothing. She’s pissed off and ready to call it a night, when she thinks she sees the yellow lining of a cape on a roof a few blocks off.

“Robin,” she shouts through the rain, landing in the alleyway in front of Dick. He doesn’t move. She runs to him. “Dick?” she pants.

No one else is around. She pulls him up off the wet pavement by his elbow. He threads his arm around her waist robotically. She turns to see Adamson face down in a pool of rainwater and blood. She doesn’t ask. She’s not here for Adamson. She’s been monitoring police scanners and patrolling, searching for days trying to find him. If this is where he is, fine. 

“Did you drive out here?” she asks.

Dick nods, hands her the keys to a rental car. She starts to make a joke about where in that bodysuit he keeps these, but he’s got a thousand-mile stare and she’s pretty sure the joke won’t make it that far. He’s walking them toward the car, she realizes after a few blocks. He lays onto the backseat with a grunt.

“I have to call in Adamson,” she whispers. Seeing Dick like this makes Kory’s skin cold. “Ok,” she says, “I’ll be right back.”

The call to the station is annoying and uncomfortable, she wants to talk to Dick not their call coordinator, but that’s life. Adamson is still breathing, Kory discovers at the coordinator’s prompting. She’s not overly happy at the prospect. She cuffs him and waits, in the rain, for a squad car to pick him up.

“Gar I’m on my way home, I’m gonna need you to pull out the med kit and not to ask any questions when we come in, Ok?” she says, phone muffled to her face. “Yeah, I’ve got Dick with me,” she says watching his unconscious body in the rearview mirror. “We’re fine, baby, Dick’s just a little banged up. Ok, 10 minutes, Gar.”

_What the fuck has gotten into you, Grayson?_

Kory has to peel off the domino mask and remove the cape. There’s no way to inconspicuously change him into pedestrian clothes in the back of this Kia Soul in the parking lot of her apartment building. She can’t even find his street clothes. She sighs. She pulls off her wet coat and drapes it over his shoulders, then drapes him over her shoulders. Now she’s gambling. _No neighbors,_ she chants under her breath, _no neighbors_. She takes the east stairs up, figuring it will mean less foot traffic. She’s right, but four flights carrying “Thick Grayson” is a real workout. She practically kicks in her own door when she reaches it.

“Kory,” exclaims Gar blocking the doorway.

“Move Gar,” Kory pants stumbling through the doorway and into her bedroom. She dumps Dick on the bed and collapses next to him.

“The first aid stuff is in the kitchen, like you asked,” says Gar.

“Thank you,” Kory pants.

“I’ll get you some water,” says Gar scuttling into the kitchen.

“You are,” Kory pants poking Dick in the forehead, “such a pain the ass.”

After a five-minute breather, Kory gets up and changes Dick into the pajama pants he keeps here. He’s bruised up pretty badly but doesn’t have too many open cuts. His lip is split again. She shakes her head.

Gar bends over the bathtub in Kory’s bathroom wiping disinfectant over the Robin suit.

“Kory! The ‘R’ on the suit holds baterangs!! Rob-erangs?” Gar gushes. “Ow, ow, they’re sharp. Ow, they’re like _really_ sharp!”

Kory brushes back Dick’s hair, before sliding his head from her lap and checking on Gar.

“Are you bleeding all over the suit you just cleaned?” she quips.

“Kory,” says Gar in a reverent tone. He holds up the suit so that she can see the lining. Stitched over the left breast is an old, laminated photo of a man and a woman wearing matching blue unitards.

Kory squeezes Gar’s shoulder. “His parents,” she says quietly. She forgets sometimes how sentimental Dick is. He and Gar have that in common.

“Alright, let’s finish this up. It’s late,” she says. She helps Gar finish wiping the suit. How Dick folds this rubbery ass suit into that briefcase Kory doesn’t know, and frankly doesn’t have the patience to find out.

Gar wants to stay up all night fanboying about Batman and Robin, but Kory doesn’t have it in her. She tries to shepherd him back to this his room, but he’s glued to the suit. She relents at last, making him promise he’ll be up in time for school tomorrow, mostly because she knows she probably won’t be.

-

Dick awakes with a jump, the sound of a train rattling the windows. _Where am I?_ He turns to find Kory, pretzeled around a pillow, snoring lightly. As he sits up, his body creaks. He’s wearing a white shirt that he doesn’t remember putting on. This is Kory’s apartment. He doesn’t remember how he got here. He has a smattering of ninja turtle band aids on his arm. _Ok,_ he thinks.

He groans to a stand. The neon alarm clock reads 7:13AM. He stumbles into the kitchen.

“Good morning!” chirps Gar through a mouthful of cereal.

“Goo’ morning,” Dick rasps, squinting into light. His Robin suit is draped over the back of the couch. He looks between it and Gar. Gar’s grin is nearing impossible widths.

“Were you with Batman?” Gar asks, wiggling his eyebrows.

“No,” Dick grumbles, pouring half a carton of orange juice into a glass.

“Ok, keep your secrets,” Gar smiles. Dick snorts.

“Hey, thanks,” he says motioning at the ninja turtle band aids.

“For a defender of Gotham, and DC? It’s the least I could do,” says Gar wiggling past Dick to rinse his bowl in the sink. “Hey, are they called baterangs or Rob-erangs? Bat- _R-_ angs?”

Dick laughs, “I never really thought about it.”

“My vote is Rob-erangs,” he says, shrugging on his backpack.

“You’re gonna be late for school!” croaks Kory from the other room.

“I’m leaving now!” Gar yells back. He gives Dick another grin, pulls his skateboard from where it’s leaned against the wall, and hurries out.

Kory looks thoroughly disheveled as she drags herself into the living room.

“Is that my baby’s orange juice?” she grumbles looking at Dick through matted hair. He puts the glass on the counter.

“There’s mor-”

“You, couch,” she demands. Dick rolls his shoulders and trudges to the couch.

“What happened back at the station?” she asks, looking at him intensely. _Back at the station?_

Dick sighs. “I got a call from Diana.”

“Saying what?”

Dicks fists curl shut. He doesn’t want to do this now. He doesn’t want to do this ever.

“Help me understand,” says Kory rubbing her tired face.

He can hear the strain of her patience. He knows he owes Kory an explanation, but his mouth feels like it's filled with cotton balls. She doesn’t push him, which is actually making this harder. If she pushed, if she accused him, at least he could drown this gutted feeling in anger.

“Talk to me, Dick,” she says moving next to him, stroking his hair, taking care of him like she has since they met.

He doesn’t deserve this kind of affection. Her hand is warm in his hair, over his neck. He feels so heavy. He reaches out for her, pulls her in. She smells like cocoa-butter, like warm, like home. The crushing feeling of losing Donna constricts his chest. He just holds Kory against him, reminding himself that she’s real. He presses his face into her collar, feeling her heartbeat in her neck. He closes his eyes and she holds him. He doesn’t know for how long.

He can’t admit what he’s done. In the three days since Donna …he’s not sure he knows what he’s been doing. Nothing good. _Dancing on the edge, mostly._

“I’m worried about you,” she says into his hair.

“Kory,” he says, the tears spilling from his eyes. He wasn’t sure he had any left. “Donna’s dead.”

~***~

Rachel wakes up shivering in a dark room she’s never seen before. She hugs her knees to her chest. This isn't the first time she's woken up in a dark room she's never seen before. Her heart thumps in her chest. She's tired. She blacked out again, and can't remember what she's been doing. She's on a bed. It smells like cheap detergent. Mom always used lavender detergent. She squeezes her knees closer.

She doesn't understand what Dr. Adamson wants with her. She doesn’t understand how he keeps finding her. She's working herself up. Take a breath, she reminds herself, but she can't seem to. She knows that this is the exactly the emotional state that lets _it_ in. No. Breathe.

"Rachel," it hisses.

"No. No. No."

"We can get you out. We know where you can find your mother."

"My mother is dead."

"Angela lives."

"Angela?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to JaffaCountingTribblesInTheTardis on Tumblr for creating the ‘Dick carries a picture of his parents’ headcanon that punched me in the chest so hard that I had to inflict those feels on everyone else.


	10. (2016) Honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gar and Kory bond. Dick spins out.

He asks for space. Kory would be at peace with the concept if she could fight for it. It would easier if he’d asked her to prove her love by climbing to the top of the rutt tree or gathering a rare gem or jousting. Providing space is irritating and makes Kory unsure of how to act. On Tamaran, if you lost your best friend you would cry, wail even. You would scream, fight. Everyone would. It proves you are still alive, that you remember your friend. It is an honor to their memory. Dick is very quiet in his grieving.

Kory doesn’t know how Gar convinced Dick to stay when she couldn’t, but she’s glad for it either way. She sits on the couch watching the news on mute as Gar does his homework at the kitchen table. Kory can’t imagine how the Flash Museum is still open when it’s broken into every other week. She flips and the channel and sighs. Dick types away at his briefcase laptop from the armchair. _What is he working on?_ She moves to the edge of the couch, tempted to touch his knee.

The doorbell rings.

“Yes!” says Gar leaping up, eager for this distraction. It’s their Thai food delivery.

“Dinner,” sings Gar.

Kory and Dick join him at the table.

“How’s your biology reading going?” asks Kory.

Gar groans.

“We’re still doing cells. I can’t wait until we start talking about bigger creatures,” he wiggles his nose into a snout, making Kory giggle.

He snorts at Dick and Dick looks at him like he just woke up.

“Sorry, what’s happening right now?” Dick asks.

Gar laughs and pushes Dick his box of drunken noodles.

“Dude, you get the same thing every time,” complains Gar.

“What’s the problem Gar, you got beef?” asks Dick in a deadpan as he motions to the word ‘beef’ scrawled on the edge of his takeout box.

Gar’s mouth falls open and the three of them laugh. Kory hasn’t seen Dick laugh in a couple days, it’s nice. Why he’s made a habit of harassing Gar with the corniest jokes, Kory doesn’t know, but it’s nice. She squeezes his knee under the table and he smiles at her, still laughing. His smile is so cute.

By Saturday Dick is in a much more approachable mood, cuddlier. He’s sneaking hugs from Kory as she’s sautéing vegetables for the breakfast hash. She leans back into him and he reaches around her sprinkling salt from the clay pot into the pan. _This she can do._ The quiet domesticity is a nice change of pace from being wet and cold and banged up from patrolling, or being hunched over a desk, or crammed into a too-small rental car for hours at a time.

“Tell me we have some bacon or tempeh or eggs or something to go with this,” he whispers.

“I can fry something up for you,” she offers.

“I got it,” he says finding another pan and gathering the additional food. He stands in the light of the refrigerator until it begins beeping at him. “Is this stuff in here because you eat it or because I’m here?”

Kory laughs. “Was it in there the last time you were here?”

Dick pulls the egg carton and bacon out of the refrigerator and envelopes Kory in a tight hug, kissing down her neck.

“Ewww, get a room,” grumps Gar waddling into the kitchen. “Also some pants,” he says looking at Kory, “Come on, children live here!” Kory rolls her eyes and keeps cooking.

“I’ve got it, Dick,” she says pulling the pan from Dick’s hand as he tries to put it on the stove.

“I’m helping,” he protests.

“My kitchen suffers when you help,” she laughs and shoos him from the kitchen. He and Gar flip on _Spongebob_. Kory doesn’t understand the appeal of the shrill voiced, manic sponge man, but she’s happy to spend the morning with her family.

“Star, do we have time to visit the ship today?” asks Dick making his best puppy face over the lip of the couch. He’s _very_ cute.

“Why not,” she says flipping the eggs. “Gar you wanna come too?”

“Uhmm, not today. Victor, Jaime, and I have to work on this group project for our history class. Oh! I need construction paper.”

“Gar we were just at the store,” sighs Kory.

“I forgot,” he shrugs. Kory rolls her eyes.

“We can pick some up after breakfast,” laughs Dick.

Gar bats his lashes and, in a teasingly high-pitched voice says, “you’re my hero, mister.”

Dick wrestles Gar into a noogie.

“Breakfast, children,” says Kory putting the vegetable hash, eggs, and bacon on the table.

\--

“You’re getting better,” Kory says as she turns off the tractor beam that Dick accidently turned on for the second time.

Dick sighs.

The holographic display blinks on at the console behind them, the handsome, blue form of Faddei crackling to life. Kory doesn’t want Dick to see this, but it’s too late to hurry him out of the room or to make some excuse. Faddei marked the message as urgent so it just begins to play. Dick looks at her, climbs out of the flight seat.

“My Princess,” bows the hologram of Faddei. “Your council petitions your return. The Tamaranean grand court needs your presence to stabilize the political faction your sister is building. We fear a major shift in—” Kory turns off the message. She wishes Faddei would stop sending these. She needs to stop the Raven before she can return home, to ensure that she has a home to return to.

Dick’s eyebrow knit together. He steps closer to the holodisplay. “What?”

She wishes this wasn’t happening, or if it has to happen, then she wishes it could happen some other time. She sucks in her bottom lip and avoids eye contact.

“Kory,” he says in a dangerously low voice. She looks him in the eye.

“Ask,” she almost whispers.

“You’re the _princess_ of your _planet_?” She can’t think of anything to say so she just nods. He lifts his arms and shakes his head and then just breathes out loudly.

“What?” he says at last.

“Dick…”

“We should get Gar his construction paper,” he says in a flat voice. The shopping trip is a quick and silent one. Dick deflects every attempt Kory tries at a conversation. She’s starting to get angry.

“Why can’t we just talk about this?”

“Talk about what? That you’re leaving?”

“I’m not Dick, I’m right here!” she growls.

“You’re impossible,” he cuts.

They’re back at Kory’s apartment. Kory’s royal jewelry is sitting on the bed. Since Faddei’s message, the day’s alternated between silence and arguing.

“I’m just trying to be honest about who I am,” she yells.

“What do you know about honesty, Kory? You’ve been lying to me this whole time!”

“I _haven’t_ been lying,” she insists. Dick’s breath breaks in frustration.

“But you weren’t going to tell me this?” he cries. His fisted are balled at his sides, eyes glazed in a burning sheen.

“I was,” she says reaching toward him. He jerks himself away. “But I also knew that when I did, there was a chance you’d act like this.”

_That hurts_. _All of this, hurts._ He thought that they’d gotten past all the secrets. In the long months that they’d known each other, worked together day and night, he thought that everything was out in the open. She knows everything about him. All the dark parts and rough edges. He’s said more to Kory about Clay and his circus family, about Dawn and Hank and _Donna_ , shit even about Jericho, than he’s told anyone else.

But she still has secrets.

_It hurts._

It reminds him of Bruce. It reminds of him of being a lost kid, trying to know the older man that adopted him, but always hitting a brick wall. Bruce taught him how to erect his own wall, a wall that Dick lived behind contently for years. Now he feels like he’s laying under the rubble of a thousand fire-charred bricks as Kory cuts his heart out.

“This is bullshit, Kory,” he growls throwing the tiara on the bed. She couldn’t just be a person. An alien. She had to be a princess, and not just of a country, of a whole fucking planet. _What is my life?_ Dick wonders miserably. Kory takes a deep breath, gently picking the silver tiara with its intricate scroll work and fine trails of dangling gemstones. She holds it like a broken bird.

“It’s my birthright. My destiny,” she says softly.

“So you’re just going to go back? What about Gar? What about-“ _me,_ he’s too choked to finish the sentence.

Kory looks at him in silence. This is why he doesn’t get close to people. They always leave. They die or they figure out what a fuck up he is, and they don’t want to stay. God, he’s so stupid. _So stupid._ Why did he think this could work?

This is not working. He stands up abruptly and stomps out of the room, slamming the door. Kory hears his rental car rev up in the driveway. She watches the glowing trail of headlights as he speeds off. She knows he’s still raw from losing Donna. She repeats that fact to herself as she stares out the window trying not to be angry.

“Mom,” says Gar from the hallway, “is everything ok?” He’s in his Superman pajamas, under a set of heavy headphones, holding a wireless controller. His face is painted into a grim, worried expression that doesn’t fit him. The kid has ears like a wolf. Kory sighs, still looking out the window. She wipes her face and turns around with a tight smile.

“Yeah, they needed Dick at the station,” she lies.

“Ok,” says Gar lingering in the doorframe, looking at her with probing, unfooled eyes.

“Ok,” she repeats. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on your group project?” she says rising off the bed and walking towards him.

“I was waiting for my construction paper,” he quips. She snorts, overcome with a twisting pang of love for Gar.

“You’re a brat that doesn’t do homework,” she says hugging him tightly. She won’t leave Gar, not for Tamaran. Not for anything.

“You’re crushing me,” he wheezes. Kory squeezes tighter and a real smile, however faint tugs at her cheeks.


	11. (2016) We Have to Try

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some relationships tear at the seams, some thrive, some kindle at last.

It’s Sunday. Dick hasn’t called or texted all day and neither has she. She doesn’t want to call or text, she wants to talk. She walks up the steps of the narrow brownstone and knocks. The wintermint gum hasn’t tasted like anything since she got on the train to come here. She chomps it impatiently, hands curled into the pocket of her bleached denim jacket.

Dick’s sweaty and shirtless as he opens the door. He doesn’t say anything.

“Hi,” she says brushing past him.

“Kory—”

“Can we just fucking talk like adults for ten minutes?” she says trying and failing not to fly off the handle.

Dick throws up his hands and motions at the midcentury chic grey couch. This apartment is a mess. Empty, open protein powder jars are strewn about the counter. Clothes hang over the edge of the couch and across the floor. She steps over a hanger and a miscellany of chords. Dick unwraps his knuckles and stills the punching bag he’s clearly been assaulting.

He leans against the hallway entry, his body is tense, and looks at her.

“You just ran out,” she says.

“There was nothing left to say.”

“Dick, I have to go back to Tamaran eventually, but that doesn’t mean I’m not here now.”

Dick’s head tilts back as he huffs in frustration. He rakes his hair through his fingers.

“You act like you don’t have responsibilities!” she says rising off the couch in equal frustration.

“At least you know what my fucking responsibilities are, Kory!” Kory’s hands curl into fists.

“I didn’t choose this anymore than you chose Batman,” she shouts. Dick makes a pained noise.

“Star, I can’t do this,” he hisses.

“Can’t do what? Have a conversation?” she stabs, but Dick doesn’t answer. Kory heaves a sigh, teeth grinding. “Listen, I know it’s been a shitty week. You’re still grieving. I should’ve told you. I’m sorry. Can we jus-”

“Kory, _stop_ … just… _stop_ ,” he rasps, voice hitching.

“Why are you pushing me out?” she hisses fiercely. He doesn’t look at her. She takes a step towards him. “You don’t have to suffer alone. Come back, Dick. Come home.”

She closes the distance between them. She laces her hand around the back of his neck and pulls him into her. She can feel his body start to melt but then he pushes himself away.

“I can’t do this,” he sniffs.

It hits Kory like a bus.

“You’re not serious,” she whispers deflating like a puncturing balloon. “Fuck you, Dick,” she whispers angry tears rolling down her cheeks. She pulls a flashdrive from her pocket and tosses it onto the couch. “Gar made you a montage of news clips featuring Wondergirl’s greatest saves. I’ll see you at work.”

She punches a searing hole into the punching bag on the way out to keep from blasting off his front door.

\--

To say that work’s been awkward is an understatement. She starts bringing Gar’s spare headphones. A security camera back in Ohio spots Rachel. Kory’s not looking forward to the drive, but Kory’s had to do a lot of things over the course of her life that she didn’t look forward to and managed to get through. She sighs and whips out her phone, walking into the hallway. She tries to ignore Dick’s eyes following her out.

“Gar? Are you at lunch?”

“Yes and not to be that guy, but I noticed that there isn’t any fruit leather in here,” Gar starts.

Kory licks her teeth.

“Yeah, I guess we need to go to the store again,” she says with menacing cheeriness. Gar laughs nervously over the phone.

“I’m guessing you didn’t call about fruit leather. You wanna hear about how Victor almost got us killed in chemistry,” Gar jokes. She hears Victor in the background ‘Hey Miss Anders!’

“Maybe later, Gar. Grayson and I need to make a quick trip to Ohio, tonight if possible, do you think you can manage for a day.”

“No problem,” says Gar. “Hey..oww, stop, hey!” There’s a scuffing and then she hears Victor’s voice, “Do you think Jaime and I can come over, for our ummm history project?”

“Good try Victor, I know that was due last week.”

“Sorry about that, _mom_ ,” says Gar regaining the phone. “J just got a new Playstation game and—”

“It’s fine, Gar, as long as J’s mom doesn’t cuss me out in Spanish again for not being at the house. I’ll leave you pizza money and emergency contact before I go.”

“YES! I love you!”

“Love you too, Tiger.” Kory blows a kiss into the phone, mood lifting considerably.

~* * *~

Why is Ohio always so cold, Kory wonders as she crunches through the fall leaves in her waterproof boots. This is an out of the way place, the roads aren’t paved. Dick pulls up to the large two story house. The paint is peeling and dead vines cling to the siding of the house like the mean to pull it back into the earth. There doesn’t look to be another house for miles. The house looks big enough for a full family, but according to neighbors it was just one woman. It’s dark by the time they get here. The solitary streetlight filters through ropes of phone wire.

“You ready?” Dick asks turning off the rental car.

Kory nods clicking on her flashlight. They walk up the dirt driveway. The lawn is unkempt, shrub brush eating into the remains of a garden. A beatup old pickup still sits in the driveway. Police tape covers the door. Opening the door see smells it before she sees it. The stomach-churning smell of gore—a wet, sour smell of flesh that belongs within. The cleaners haven’t come through yet, but forensics has picked the place clean. The bodies are gone.

“They said our victim was in the kitchen,” says Kory carefully walking around the blood splatter sprayed across the living room carpet and coffee table. Kory chokes a gag as the smell of the kitchen hits her. It’s like all the food in the house spoiled at once—that and gore.

“Fuck,” Dick winces under his breath.

A large arcane symbol is painted in blood across the kitchen door and onto the floor. Kory holds her hand back for Dick to hand her the stack of pictures. She thumbs through until she finds it: A blonde-haired woman pinned to the center of the symbol, arms outstretched. Her body is flat like she’s lain under a steamroller. It’s ghastly.

They find pictures of Rachel in the photo albums tucked into the dusty boxes in the attic. There’s a picture of the blonde woman holding a baby Rachel on the bedside table in the master bedroom. The faded floral motifs stretch onto every surface of this old house. Everything carries a musty smell that makes it hard to believe anyone lived here recently. There are journals and journals and journals of scrawlings and prophecies and manifestos in Angela Azarath’s handwriting.

“X’Hal,” Kory whispers flipping through the most recent journal. “I think they tried to summon him.”

“Summoned who,” Dick asks looking over her shoulder at the arcane symbols.

“The monster we’re trying to keep Rachel from,” she says.

Dick visibly tenses.

Even after sitting in the shower until her body prunes, Kory can smell the tangy, iron stink of blood. She shivers into the motel blankets, wrapping them around herself until they’re a giant knot with her at the center. She sits like that for a long time letting the local cable news drone on in the background. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees it again. That woman. That flat, blood-drained woman like the hide of some unrecognizable animal, surrounded in runes painted in her own blood. She feels the bile rise to her throat. She fumbles open the tequila and pours it into the foggy, plastic cup with shaking hands. Somewhere out there, there’s a kid a year younger than Gar, that’s seen all of this. There’s a little girl, with no family, and no home, running—or being shuttled by who knows what darkness, from horror to horror. _Why can’t we fucking find her? Hasn’t she suffered enough?_

Time flows one agonizing second after another, but nothing seems to change. The memory of the day lingers on her like a brand—hot, and itching.

“Kory,” calls a hushed voice from the hallway.

Kory jumps and hates herself for it. It’s Dick’s voice, nothing to be scared of. She gracelessly detangles herself and feels the rush of tequila swirl between her ears. She squints into the light of the hallway.

“Dick?” she says opening the door.

His eyes flicker between hers. He’s checking on her, she realizes, and he doesn’t like what he sees. She opens the door wider and shrugs as if to say, “if you’re coming in, come in.”

“Hey,” he starts, letting the salutation hang in the lowlight.

“I hate this case, Dick,” she says falling heavily into the bed. “It’s one grizzly, horrific, murder after another. The clues lead us nowhere.” She sits up and reaches for the thumb of tequila still in the cup, shooting it back. “Are we getting any closer to finding her?” she asks, voice hitching.

Dick takes a hesitant step forward and stops. “I don’t know,” he says sinking into a chair. “What do you want to do?”

_What do you want to do?_ Like it’s so simple, Kory thinks, like it hasn’t been a year of their lives. Kory shakes her head squeezing the empty cup. She wants to go home to Gar. Dick knows she wants to go home. 

“Can we stop any of this?” The murders. The chase. The seemingly inevitable gathering of darkness that threatens to unhinge Kory.

But Dick doesn’t want to give up. He doesn’t want to leave with the possibility that Rachel could still be alive. He doesn’t want to abandon her like he feels he was abandoned. He wants Kory to stay and do this with him, because _he needs_ to do this. Kory is tired.

“We have to try,” he says.

Kory chokes a laugh, an unbidden stinging coming to her eyes. How many more corpses will she have to wade through before Dick realizes that she won’t abandon him? She sniffs away the burn in her throat and eyes, wiping her face on her sleeve.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep trying, Dick,” she admits looking at him.

He looks down and nods. He stands up quietly, lingering by the door. He starts to say something but closes the door instead. She screams into a pillow and then throws it at the door.

God she’s tired of this: tired of this case, and tired to death of Dick’s attitude. The anger gathering in her chest gives her the strength to stand up. They need to find Rachel. She shoves the box of case files open, pulling out the most recent file with a slap.

There’s got to be something they’ve missed.

~ * * *~

A day passes and then a week, two weeks, four. Just like every time they think they have a clue or a lead or a hope: nothing. All of Rachel’s trails evaporate into smoke. They’re back in the car. Kory can’t remember the last time she got enough sleep. It’s making her irritable—but maybe it’s just Dick.

“You’re not serious,” she says slamming the coffee into the cup holder with enough force to slosh the hot liquid onto the seat.

“Rachel’s trail has been cold for over a month and the captain called yesterday to tell me he’s not paying for us to fly anywhere else to chase this,” he replies, weaving the white Ford Focus into the left lane.

“And?”

“And what, Kory?” he responds irritably, yanking at the gear shift.

“Why are you are giving up all of a sudden?”

“I’m not giving up,” he barks, knowing she’s sniffed him out. “They’re asking me to follow up on an undercover case.”

“And you took it?”

“Yes.”

“Where? For how long?” Dick is quiet. “Yeah, okay,” she says, slumping back in the seat.

“Star,” he pleads, foot too heavy on the gas.

“Don’t call me that,” she bites. “I said, ok, Dick just drop it.”

“Come on-“

“Drop it!” she yells hoarsely. Her skin sparking with that familiar starfire glow. The ride in silence.

“I thought it would be good for us to have some space,” he says quietly, purposely looking away from her. Even as the words exit his mouth, he knows he’s said the wrong thing.

“Good for you, you mean,” she laughs spitefully.

He turns to look at her, opens his mouth to keep arguing, when a speeding car overtakes them and Dick has to slam the breaks to keep from hitting it. He and Kory jolt forward. Kory looks at him, icy silent.

She doesn’t talk to him for the rest of the ride to the airport. She doesn’t bothering taking the headphones out of her ears in the terminal and when the flight attendant asks if anyone would be whiling to switch seats with the gentlemen who needs an aisle seat, she’s more than happy to volunteer.

Kory takes a taxi home from the airport. She needs time away from him. The hardcopy case file on Dr. Adamson and his cult sits on her lap as she pours over it again for the hundredth time.

“Ma’am,” says the cab driver pulling up to her apartment building. _That was fast._ Kory pulls her things out of the trunk and walks into the apartment as quietly as possible. It’s 3AM on a Tuesday and she doesn’t want to wake Gar. She twists the door handle slowly.

“Welcome back,” yawns Gar from the couch. The lowlight of the TV gives his hair an aqua tint.

“Hey, Tiger,” she smiles leaning over the couch to look at him and cupping his cheek in her hand. He pulls a froggish face. He’s got the puffy cheeks of a newly woken sleeper and the long dent of a couch cushion impressed on his forehead. She chuckles.

“Did you eat the leftovers?” she asks, kicking off her shoes and heading for the kitchen.

“Not all of them,” he mutters still half-asleep. Kory pulls a tupperware of butternut squash and cauliflower curry from the fridge. “How’s the case?”

Kory makes a muppet-y groaning noise.

“Got it,” chuckles Gar. “And how’s Dick?” he asks sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “He hasn’t been over in a while, I was gonna introduce him to the world of _Overwatch_ ,” he says hopefully.

He hasn’t seen Dick for weeks, but apparently, they’ve been texting. Kory sighs.

“Are you aware that you’ve got a tail right now?” she asks changing the subject. He spins comically, managing to grab the long, green, prehensile tail.

“I was practicing,” he says looking at it, “lately I’ve been changing in my sleep.”

“Really? For how long,” asks Kory putting down the food. It’s obvious that she hasn’t paid Gar enough attention in the last few days. The last few weeks, maybe.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Gar assures her, “check this out.” He picks up the remote with his tail and starts channel surfing. “Pretty cool right?”

Kory laughs picking back up her fork when her stomach growls.

“I can do that too,” he boasts. Before Kory can ask, Gar’s face and neck shift into a tiger’s form and he gives a low growl.

“Gar you’re gonna scare the shit out of our neighbors,” says Kory with a huge smile. Gar’s body shudders and he reverts back to a 16-year-old boy.

“Yeah, that’s my bad.”

“But that’s amazing,” she gushes. Gar grins.

“It’s _so_ cool, right? Oh!” he begins pulling up a chair to the glass dining table next to the couch and whipping out his phone. “So I was playing Wii today and one of the controllers ran out of batteries.” Kory munches quietly, leaning against the kitchen counter, waiting to see where this is going. “Well, so, this whole time we’ve been thinking about the battery-thing we need for the ship’s scanner as a problem of building a new battery-thing, but don’t other ships use similar power sources?”

Kory mulls that over, chewing through a chunk of cauliflower. “Sure, other Tamaranean ships or other ships from that solar system do, but there aren’t any of thos-“

“What about an Okaaran escape pod?” says Gar pulling up a picture of a crater.

Kory scoops a huge mouthful of food into her mouth and crosses over to Gar to inspect the picture. Gar explains that he’s been playing with the limited scanning the ship still has and sifting through the ship’s flight data using Kory’s translator. He accidentally initiated the beaconing radio and received a ping back from something in New Mexico. After doing some reading and, randomly pressing a lot more buttons, and calling his friend Victor with a bunch of ‘hypothetic’ questions, he managed to identify the signal as another ship. Well part of another ship. Well…part of an escape pod.

“But the pod could have the piece we need,” he says.

“It’s worth a shot,” she says. “Who taught you how to do this?” she asks, impressed.

“Just naturally talented,” he says polishing his nails against his pajama shirt. Kory sandwiches him into her chest. Gar shifts into a mastiff, falls onto his paws, and shakes like he’s wet. Kory laughs uproariously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have Dick and Kory suffered enough? The answer is no, but stay tuned.  
> The people are starving on Kory/Gar content. Please receive my humble submission.


	12. (2017) Unanswered Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Important calls go unanswered.

“Gar,” she says as the teen comes home from school, “we’re taking a trip to New Mexico.”

“Seriously?” he grins.

“I’m glad you’re excited,” she smiles “’cause it’s gonna be hot and dusty and we’ll probably need to do some digging.”

“Wait, is this about the Raven case?” he asks confused.

“This is about my ship,” she responds. Gar’s face lights up like a lamp. He does an uncoordinated dance that involves lots of punchy fists.

“YES! Spaceship!” he laughs. “Oh my god, does this mean we’re finally following up on my idea about the Okaaran escape pod?”

Kory nods.

“I called your school. They’re sending us an online-learner pack for the two weeks you’ll be out.” Gar pulls a face. “This isn’t a vacation, Gar,” Kory chuckles.

“It can still be a vacation. Are we driving?” he asks practically bouncing.

“Not to get there. But it’s a big place, so yeah, I guess.”

“Road trip! I’ll make us some playlists and a list of required snacks,” he says throwing his backpack on the couch and running into his room.

“Make a list of stuff you need to bring to do your online-learning, Gar!” He’s already in his room with the music on.

Kory shakes her head and hoists herself unto the counter. She pulls out the special phone.

Why is she doing this? She hasn’t heard from Grayson in weeks. She pulls up his number.

Kory remembers watching Dick put on the domino mask the first time they patrolled together.

_“Stop laughing,” he chuckles, “I have an identity to protect.”_

Her stomach tickles at the memory.

_“Hey, if you ever need anything,” he says handing her the phone._

_“Anything?” she purrs._

_“If you ever need me,” he laughs. “It’s for emergencies.”_

She hops off the counter and throws the special phone into her purse. She pulls her everyday phone out of her back pocket and shoots Dick a text:

“Lead on loose end: scanner battery for _car_. Will B in NM for next 2wks.”

_Asshole._

-

“Where the fuck are we?” asks Kory whipping the car around the turn off and screeching into the gas station parking lot.

“I don’t know,” huffs Gar shaking his phone. “I haven’t had reception in like an hour.”

“There should be a map in the glove box,” she sighs. They step out of the car and stretch their legs. This place looked a lot closer on Google Maps. Still they can’t be lost, all the they to do was drive straight. They pull out the coffee stained roadmap and unfold it over the hood. It takes them a solid ten minutes to find where they are and another five to find where they’re supposed to go.

“You folks need a hand?” The voice belongs to a red-haired man of average height with a snug fitting Under Armor shirt and a black baseball cap with a green bill. He’s handsome in a scruffy, cowboy kind of way. Short for Kory, but handsome.

“We’re trying to get to Gallup,” she says squinting in the bright New Mexico sun.

“You’re not far, it’s just south. I’m headed there myself, feel free to follow,” he offers.

“Thanks,” she smiles.

“No problem,” he says tipping his hat and winking. Kory chuckles and she and Gar follow the man’s white, mud caked Toyota Tundra down the 491.

~* * *~

The New Mexico horizon stretches on forever. Hard-packed earth stretching to hills and plateaus with nothing in the way of vegetation except a hardy scrub brush. The sun is so bright the sky seems more white than blue. After several minutes of bumping along the roadless terrain following the gradually increasing beep of the portable scanner, Kory parks. Gar pulls the bright orange bucket hat he bought at the last trucker stop and the two of the pull their shovels from trunk.

“Make sure you stay hydrated,” says Kory stretching and letting the sun shine down on her.

She wishes there was more greenery here, but the sun feels great. She feels awake and ready for the day. Letting the scanner guide her she uses the sharp edge of her shovel to trace the outline of the escape pod. Gar turns the car radio to oldies channel and the two of them start to dig.

They dig for a solid half hour before Gar starts to grumble.

“When you said we would have to do some digging, I didn’t think you literally meant digging,” Gar says dirt caked and sweating.

“I don’t know much clearer I could’ve been about that,” Kory grunts, pulling back another shovel of hard-packed earth. “If this guy knew how to land we won’t have to dig so fucking deep.” She grunts pulling another shovel full of dirt from the hole. This will easily take them three hours and that’s assuming they don’t stop. Kory’s hands hurt. Gar’s hands hurt. It wasn’t hot before but now it certainly feels hot.

Every couple of minutes they take a break to stretch and drink water. They’re bitching throughout, about the digging, about the drive, about petty things in their lives, about people they know, trying out progressively outlandish strings of insults and curse words.

“and then,” huffs Kory, “there’s that cowardly, sleezy, puke-breathed, plague sore of a zarbnarf banker that never holds the fucking elevator!”

Gar tries to keep digging but has completely lost it. “I’m sorry,” he wheezes, “I-I’m sorry ‘zarbnarf’?!” The two of the laugh until Kory thinks she might pee herself. They collapse to sitting and just laugh and pant and hug their knees.

“We should get some kind of go-go-gaget digging machine,” Gar sighs, wiping the sweat of his brow “I bet Batman has one.”

“You’ll have to ask Dick,” she says melting her torso onto her knees. Gar scratches the back of his head and looks away.

“Do you think the two of you will…”

Kory shrugs.

“Sorry I’m being a total downer, we’ve got digging to do!” says Gar brushing off his pants and standing up. They continue to dig.

“My sensor says we’re close,” she huffs. 

“How close,” Gar pants.

“Just another meter.” Gar groans. Just then Kory’s phone rings. She jumps up and hoists herself from the hole.

“Hello?” she says trying not to sound like she just ran a marathon. It’s the Virginia office. Kory curses under her breath.

“When?” she asks brushing a flyaway curl from her face.

“Ok, I understand,” she says hanging up the phone. Faddei was too thorough in setting up Kory’s agent credentials, but not thorough enough in giving her autonomy in distance from the bureau with the credentials. They’re recalling her. Kory stares into the cloudless sky. Gar’s going to need to transfer schools again. She immediately thinks of Victor and Jaime. _Fuck._ She should call Dick.

_“If you ever need me,” he laughs._

Kory would bet that there’s something Dick can do to make this go away. At the same time, a darker part of herself thinks, “it would be a good excuse to get out”. _Richard Zarbnarf Grayson._ She shakes her head. _Stay on target, Kory._

Back at the hole Kory encounters a green badger furiously digging into the red, sunbaked earth. She sits on the edge of the hole watching her fuzzy green boy dig away. She can’t help but giggle. Oh Gar…

“You’re doing amazing, sweetie!” she shouts from the lip of the hole. Gar shivers back to his human form.

“You know that meme?!”

“How can I not, you and Victor are constantly referencing it,” she laughs. She jumps back into the hole, picking up her shovel.

“Hey can Victor come over when we get back? I need to show him who really owns rainbow road.”

Kory’s heart sinks.

“Ah! I hit something!” yells Gar morphing back into badger form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Casually dumps gallons of Beast Boy/Cyborg BrOTP into fanfiction…


	13. (2017) The rules are whatever you want them to be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new character enters the scene.

It’s late by the time they get back to the hotel. Gar collapses, spread eagle, unto his motel bed.

“I can’t believe we spend the whole day outside digging holes,” he laughs tiredly.

Kory feels equally tired. She stretches against the dresser by the door.

“I know,” she sighs. “You wanna jump through the shower first?”

Gar grunts and rolls off the bed for the shower. Kory flops into the chair and looks out the window. Nights here are dark, only interrupted by the gauzy light of streetlamps. She watches a lone car speed along the empty road outside the motel. She sees something red streak by in the parking lot of the storage facility across the road. She squints, leaning closer to the windowpane. There’s a bright pop, like a spark, and one of the storage trailers shakes. _What?_ There’s something out there.

She sees two men running deeper into the labyrinth of units before the darkness swallows them. _“It’s stupid to go in alone,”_ echo’s Dick’s voice in her head. She turns toward the bathroom. This isn’t why she brought Gar. He doesn’t need to be embroiled in any more of this vigilante shit. She sighs. Across the street she swears she hears a boom.

“Hey Gar,” she yells over the rush of water, “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” he says from the shower.

Kory zips up her leather jacket and runs across the street.

 _I’ll just look around and make sure nobody’s hurt._ She takes cover behind one of the rusty trailers, careful not to lean against the peeling walls and make noise. It’s quiet. Then, footsteps: at least three sets, running toward her. A middle heighted redhead with a backwards baseball cap and a black and red body armor suit races by her. Two gunmen barrel after him. She ducks to the other side of the unit.

The gunmen chase the redhead to a dead-end, shooting off rounds on their silenced guns all the while. The redhead pulls out…a bow? _What the hell?_ This guy is gonna get himself killed, thinks Kory. She turns the corner behind the gunmen and jolts them with a searing blast of starfire. The two men fall forward in a heap.

“Holy fuck!” exclaims Red, pulling his goggles off. “Anders!? Kory?” he asks walking toward her, eyebrows glued into a permanent expression of question. This person is familiar, but Kory’s mind is too chockfull of adrenaline to place it. As he walks into the streetlight she recognizes him as the man from earlier. R-something. Regi? Rob? She doesn’t remember.

“It’s Roy. Roy Harper,” he says, “I helped you find Gallup.” _Right!_ He extends his hand and she shakes it.

“So holy shit, what you’re you doin’ here?” he asks befuddled but smiling.

“Other than saving your life?” she asks cheekily. Roy laughs, pulling off his hat to mop the sweat from his brow.

“Other than that.” He’s looking at her arms. Looking for something. He shakes his head. “You didn’t use any tech?” he asks, knowing the answer. A grin stretches across his windburned cheeks and he looks suddenly boyish. “What are you?”

Kory doesn’t hate his candor. _“You have to keep a low profile,”_ nags a memory of Dick. Always nagging. _I shouldn’t…but…_ She smiles and tilts her head. She flashes her eyes green as she looks at him and he leaps back with a gasp. Both of them start to laugh. The excitement, the shock, and the adrenaline makes them laugh until they are winded.

“Help me escort these fine gentlemen to the station?” he asks.

“Why not,” she smiles.

New Mexico’s not so bad.

~* * *~

Kory and Gar spend the better part of the next few days excavating the escape pod and salvaging anything from it Kory deems might be useful. Spare shield plating, why not. Extra cell fluid, take it. Various computer components make their way into their luggage. They’re having a hard time finding the part they came for. Kory’s doing her best to keep up morale, but it’s pretty clear Gar is getting bored and antsy. She’s sure he doesn’t mean anything by it but Gar’s consistent references to Dick are starting to ride her nerves.

Her phone buzzes as the two of them are finishing their taco dinner.

“tonight?” texts Roy. Kory sends back a thumbs up emoji.

“I’ll pick you up,” he replies. It’s a welcome distraction. Gar shoots her a look. Kory smiles back innocently.

\--

“So,” says Kory hovering over the edge of the three-story office building. Kory finds it almost funny that this is one of the tallest buildings in this town. “What’re the rules?”

“Whatever you want them to be, princess,” answers Roy adjusting his dark vision goggles, snapping an arrow into the middle of the alley beneath them, and then jumping over the lip of the roof. The surprised shouting of thugs, echoes in the alley. A wide smile stretches across Kory’s face as she flies down after him.

The arrow erupts in a thick green plumb that obscures everything in a 30-meter radius. Kory hovers above the fray watching the perimeter. Below she hears more shouting and the thudding of bodies.

“Over here,” Roy grunts.

More thudding. Roy laughs. One of the thugs makes it to the edge of the dissipating smoke and Kory blasts the ground in front of him. He jumps back looking around wildly. Kory lands in front of him and punches him out. She jogs into the alley singeing the idiot that tries to punch Roy from behind, launching him into a dumpster. Kory and Roy move together cover each other’s backs.

Roy’s taken out three. Two left. A tall, thick-necked man with a crowbar and a stalky man with a bat run at them.

“Check this one out,” says Roy knocking a gray arrow and shooting it at the stalky man.

As it thumps against the man’s chest it explodes into weighted black netting. The man flounders around as Roy crosses over to him calmly and tasers him to the ground. He’s chuckling.

The two of them zip tie the thugs. Roy pulls around the truck blaring trash rock from the early 00s. Kory rolls her eyes and piles the thugs into the bed.

“Did you clean this thing for little ol’ me?” mocks Kory climbing into the passenger seat. Roy blushes.

“Couldn’t have you sitting on Lian’s coloring books again,” he explains. Kory snorts.

Rolling along in the truck, Roy is jamming, shoulder length red hair bouncing along to the drumbeat.

“ _I believe in a thing called love, just listen to the rhythm of my heart!”_ he croons, dancing along with one hand and driving with the other. Roy can’t dance for shit, but he is _feeling_ it.

“You don’t know this song?” he asks. Kory shakes her head. “Wait...guitar solo.” Not even Gar gets into the air guitar as deeply as Roy. Kory is dying of laughter. She can’t stand the song, but also can’t deny how much fun she’s having.

“We gotta introduce you to music, have you heard of _Baby Shark_? That’s a Lian favorite.”

“How old is she?” Kory asks.

“Turning four in November. Little monster,” Roy laughs, eyes melting and soft.

“Does she know her daddy’s Arsenal?”

“Not in so many words, but she’s already shooting like a pro.” There so much pride in his voice. Kory smiles. “How old’s yours?”

“Gar? He’s sixteen.”

“And you guys still get along? Wow. You must be pretty good.” That really makes Kory smile.

“He’s a really great kid.”

Roy turns the music down as they enter the flat, dusty suburbs. The houses are dark, looks like most everybody is asleep. They pull bandanas over their faces and drop the thugs off at the sheriff’s house, triggering the motion-sensor lights as they approach the driveway. They look at each other like kids sneaking out of class before the bell. Roy pins a note to the leader’s lapel: “We sold drugs, and we’re sorry.” Kory giggles.

“Ice cream?” he asks with a twinkle in his green eyes.

“Lead the way,” she replies.

They pull up at a McDonald’s that looks straight out of the 50s. Its slanted roof is caked in a reddish dust that glows almost orange under the yellow neon of the two arches. Even though Tamaran has a centralized monarchy which controls everything from the language to the architecture, Kory has never experienced the homogeneity of branding that is McDonalds. _How did McDonald extend his reach this far…_

“It’s a 50/50 whether the ice-cream machine is ‘broken’,” he smirks pulling through the empty drive thru.

“Yeah, two vanilla cones,” he says to the flicking drive thru menu intercom.

“Ok, drive around,” crackles the employee at the other end.

“I guess it’s our lucky day,” he grins.

\--

Roy parks at the top of a bluff and the town below twinkles like a Christmas tree.

“You got something on yours,” he says pulling Kory’s ice cream into his hands.

Kory leans over to grab it back and Roy steals a kiss. Kory pulls back taking him in. Did this scruffy carrot haired idiot just kiss her? There’s a held breath between them. Roy is looking at her mouth. Kory’s thinking about Dick all of a sudden; it’s like a knife to the stomach.

“That’s my bad,” he says reading her face and leaning back. He sucks the top off her ice cream and hands it back to her.

“I just, didn’t expect it,” Kory mutters, taking the ice-cream. It’s good, sweet—the ice-cream.

She looks over at Roy and then out at the city lights below. Maybe Roy too. They sit listening to Roy’s music eating their ice cream. She wonders what Dick is doing. Shit she wonders _where_ he is. It pisses her off that she doesn’t even know that, after all the time they spent together as partners she feels she’s owed at least that.

By the time Kory crunches into her cone she’s firmly in ‘Fuck Dick, that asshole’ territory.

“Roy,” she says.

“Hmm?” he says turning toward her. Kory grabs his face and kisses him. If Roy’s surprised, it doesn’t take him long to acclimate to the situation.

“You know I’m just here until next week?”

“I’m only in town for this tribal conference,” he says.

“Ok,” she says.

“Ok,” he nods pulling her into his lap.

“Wait,” he breaths. He scrambles to push the middle seat between them up and away and dials up the volume of his playlist.

Kory would roll her eyes, but she’s weirdly into it right now. Roy scoots closer to her, winding his arms around her and squeezing her to him. His kisses are lusty. Wet. Sweet.

Kory swats his baseball cap onto the seat and cards through his hair. Their kisses deepen and Kory falls backward onto the seat.


	14. (2017) Dick called

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick comes back into the picture, but he may not like what he finds.

“So Lian’s mom?” Kory asks over a burger. Roy shrugs stealing her fries.

“It’s complicated at the moment. Jade is… hey, that’s our guy,” Roy tosses his burger into Kory’s lap as he kicks the truck into reverse.

“Roy! Goddammit, I like these pants,” Kory says wiping grease and ketchup off her thigh.

“Sorry, princess,” he says gunning it.

The way he drives annoys the shit out of Kory. She feels like Roy is going to slam the breaks and send her through the windshield at any minute. Dick speeds all the time, though thinks Kory. It’s never bothered her. She sighs. _I’m so tired of being hung up on Dick Grayson._

They chase a goon an in a supped-up mustang painted a candy yellow. There’s a moment that Kory seriously thinks Roy is going to ram the guy off the road but instead he forces the guy into a dead end. The fight is pretty much over before it gets started. This guy is armed but between Kory and Roy, he’s completely out gunned. The guy’s mistake is that he turns his back on Roy as Kory blasts the gun from his hands. Roy hits him with a blunt ‘taser’ arrow.

Kory enjoys patrolling with Roy. He’s so much looser than Dick. Not exactly carefree, not uncoordinated just loose. He almost fights like a Tamaranean. Kory can feel the adrenaline pulsing through him when he punches, the joy when he wins, the anguish when he misses a shot. Roy doesn’t hold anything back.

“Another one bites the dust,” he whoops zip tying the man’s wrists. He holds up his hand in a high five.

Kory smiles deviously and smacks him a stinging five. Roy winces a guttural noise, scrunching his nose at Kory.

“That’s for the pants,” she laughs. Roy curse and shakes his red hand chuckling.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he apologizes. Kory shrugs, nudging his shoulder, a non-verbal ‘it’s forgotten.’

The two of them and the perp pile into the truck. Roy dials up his music as per usual and by the end of the route the two of them are singing offkey to ‘Bad Reputation’ by Joan Jett.

She and Roy don’t sleep together again: They’re both hung up on someone else. It doesn’t matter anyway, she thinks, in two days she’ll be back in DC. She waves goodbye to Roy as he careens off, shaking her head. Roy’s music is stuck in her head as she walks into her and Gar’s motel room.

“You’re back,” Gar sighs with relief, crawling to the edge of his motel bed.

“Yeah,” says Kory throwing her jacket off by the door and gulping down the complimentary bottle of water on the dresser. Gar looks her up and down, incredulously. 

“Dick called on the special phone,” he says offering it to her.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she says stepping forward to take the phone.

“Where are you back from?”

“Loose en-“

“Seriously, Mom,” he says dropping the phone in his lap. “Please don’t tell me you weren’t out with that Roy, guy again.”

Kory laughs and rolls her eyes. “Is that what you told Dick?”

“Is that what you were doing?” presses Gar.

“Are you spying for him, now?” Kory asks, an edge to her voice.

“No,” he answers peevishly, crossing his arms.

She’s making Gar choose between her and Dick and that isn’t fair, she knows. Still she can’t help but feel that Gar should love her more, that it shouldn’t be a question or a choice. He should back Kory. _God I’m selfish_.

“I just think that guy’s bad news,” Gar continues.

Kory walks to the edge of the bed and holds out her hand for the phone. Gar gives it to her. He’s still making a face. Kory sighs.

“It’s the last time, ok?” she says picking her jack back up off the floor.

“Where’re you going now?” he says standing.

“Relax, I’m just gonna call Dick.” She waves the special phone. Gar sits back down and she walks into the parking lot. She’s tired of parking lots. She’s tired of these call ambushes. She’s tired of making Gar unhappy. She’s tired. She takes a deep breath and climbs into the rental car.

“Dick?”

“Kory!” He’s smiling. She can hear it. She’s embarrassed that the sound of his voice sends butterflies rushing through her chest.

“Where are you? How are you?”

“ _Heh_. I’m in Nevada.” That’s a lot closer than she thought. Still far, but that’s driving distance at least.

“Are you still undercover?”

“No, I just got out. They’re gonna close the case first thing in the morning.” That means he’s going back to DC, she realizes, to be a cop again. All this time she’s been so fixated on the fact that he was AWOL, undercover, that it didn’t occur to her that she’d have to figure out what came next for them. If there would be a _them._

“Did you find what you were looking for in New Mexico?” Where do they go from here? With the Bureau asking her to return back to Virginia—what binds them together?

“Kory?” Her chest feels tight. Her hands are trembling.

“Sorry what?” she rasps.

“Are you ok?”

_No._ “I just didn’t hear what you asked,” she says as confidently as she can.

He repeats the question and she explains how Gar found an Okaaran escape pod with the battery they needed for her ship’s multisensory scanner. He tells her what he can about the prison, and the cartel he was sent to infiltrate. He makes jokes about the food and the accommodations. It sounds…rough. She can tell that there are details that he’s glossing over. When she asks if he got into any fights, he changes the subject to Gar.

“I heard there’s a pretty cool Cultural Center down there, have you guys checked it out?” She wonders how many new scars and bruises he’ll have the next time she sees him. Will she see him again? Kory chokes on a sob.

“Kory? Did something happen to Gar? Is he ok? Are you ok?” She tries to answer, but right now Kory can’t do anything but cry.

“Everything is fine. I’m sorry, Dick I have to go,” she manages and hangs up.

Dick stares at the screen of his phone and a cold shiver rolls down his back. He calls her back, but she doesn’t answer. He’s never heard Kory cry before. He pulls up his GPS. Elco, Nevada to Gallup, New Mexico is an eleven-hour drive through Utah.

He’s drives for about three hours before reality hits him. What the fuck is he doing? He doesn’t even know where she is. He could know, says a voice in his head, she’s carrying the phone. It wouldn’t be difficult to ping her location on the bat-computer. He shakes the thought from his mind. Becoming Bruce was less of an all in one jump off a cliff and more of a gradual slide, he realizes. He sighs. He pulls over. He calls Kory again.

“Kory?!”

“Uh, it’s Gar,” Gar answers.

“Are you ok?” Dick needs to calm down, even he can hear how manic he sounds. He takes a short breath.

“Yeah, are you, man? You sound-”

“No, No. I’m good. Um…” he has no idea what to say to Gar. “Is your mo- is Kory around?” There’s a pause Dick doesn’t like.

“No,” Gar says and Dick can hear a story in the way he says it.

“Where is she?” he ventures. _Is she ok?_

“She’s in the shower,” Gar clears his throat, “She just got back from patrolling.”

“What? By herself? Why?” he asks just as unhappily as Gar.

“I don’t know, she just goes out and patrols now with uuuum… I think he goes by Arsenal.”

Dick was not expecting this. Any of this. As he blinks a thousand images of Roy’s fuckery flash through his head.

“Kory is out patrolling in New Mexico…with _Roy Harper_?” he asks slowly as if he too is unsure about the words he’s saying.

“You know him?” gasps Gar. Right now, Dick wishes he didn’t.

“Ok, Gar, did anything happen?”

“Like what?” 

Actually, Dick doesn’t know either. Did anything happen to Kory, physically? Emotionally? Well emotionally other than what he’s done to Kory. Or did anything happen between Roy and Kory? Somehow he thinks he already knows, and it makes him sick to his stomach.

“Nevermind, sorry I called. Have a good night,” Dick stammers.

“Sure, no worries,” says Gar. Dick can hear the shock in his voice. Another pause. “I miss you, dude. I, uhm, I hope we’ll see you again.”

“Yeah,” says Dick unable to make any kind of inflection. He’s completely failing Gar in this moment, he knows, but there’s a dagger twisting in his chest and it’s progressively hard to focus on anything else.

“Ok, so…goodnight,” says Gar and he hangs up.

_What the fuck am I doing in Utah?_ He collapses into his steering wheel. His heart feels like it just fell out of his ass. He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He shouts profanities and beats on the dashboard until he feels better, if better is the right word.

~* * *~

Two days later, Roy drives Gar and Kory to the airport blaring “Teenaged Dirtbag.” Gar jumps out first, _racing_ to pull the luggage out of the trunk.

“I’ll wait by the door,” he grumbles, wanting absolutely nothing to do with whatever goodbyes are about to unfold between Kory and Roy.

“He really doesn’t like me,” chuckles Roy when Gar’s out of the car. Kory shrugs.

“He’s a better judge of character than I am,” Kory jokes.

“That’s probably true,” says Roy scooting closer, “am I gonna see you again?”

Kory shakes her head. “Maybe?”

“One for the road then,” says Roy pressing Kory into a hug. He gives the back of her neck a reassuring squeeze while she’s close. She hugs him back.

“Thanks for everything, Roy,” she says softly. She looks into his pale, green eyes and wonders if he’ll be alright. She hopes he will be.

“Later, Princess,” he smiles. Kory nods.

Roy watches her stride over to Gar and then peels out of the parking lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early in the chapter, Roy is singing to the 2003 classic “I believe in a thing called love,” by the Darkness. If you’re diggin’ Roy’s music, peep Snubberdoodle’s It’s Ya Boy Roy! playlist on Spotify. It is excellent.


	15. (2018) Everything's Changed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kory's back in DC...so is Dick.

A week later their both back DC. Dick contemplates buying flowers or inviting Kory to dinner or out to a bar. If Donna was around, he’d call her and ask. Instead he kicks at the pavement in front of the florist and then goes home empty handed.

Showing up at work, he decides to play it cool. Act natural. He’s sneaking looks at the side of her face. She’s picked up some sun, she’s glowing. Her hair is curly. He’s only ever seen it curly over holiday vacation. He likes it curly. He likes her however she looks. He likes her, period.

He spent a lot of him in Nevada staring at the jail cell ceiling wondering why he was there, why he took the case. The green jello reminded him of her jewelry, the sunrise of her smile. The bells would ring out the hours and he’d imagine what she was doing. He was stupid, is stupid for pushing her away. He can’t even think about Roy. Thinking about Kory with someone else makes him want to take a stapler to his face.

The sharp ping of an email alert brings him back to reality. Their main contact at the offsite forensics department found something. He could just have Nora send it over. He turns to watch her filing something, chin rested in his hand. He stands up.

“Hey,” he says, “forensics wants us to take a look at something.”

“Okay,” she says mechanically. She pulls her blazer off the back of her chair.

Dick idly turns on the radio, the silence is too loud for him. After a second he looks at Kory and begins dialing around trying to find a disco station.

“It’s ok,” says Kory looking out the window, “you can leave it.”

“Really?” he asks, genuinely confused. “ _You_ listen to other music now.”

“Some of it’s alright,” she answers watching the trees blink by. Dick shakes his head and dials back to the rock station. A stone sinks into his stomach. It was too easy—too optimistic—to think that nothing would change between them. He grips the steering wheel.

“ _~if long hair and tattoos are what attract you, baby then you’re in luck~”_ she sings under her breath. It’s impossible for Dick not to think of an arrow toting red head. He looks at Kory, head leaned against the edge of the open window, red-streaked hair whipping behind her, and wonders what she’s thinking about as she sings along. _Probably Roy._

He’s taken hits to the face that hurt less than this. Is it over between them? He swerves the car off the side of the road. Kory sits up in panicked confusion. He turns the car off. Her eyes dart around the displays behind the steering wheel and then to his face trying to understand. He’s picking an emotional scab, he knows, but he can’t help it. His feelings for Kory escaped the lockbox in his chest as soon as he saw her again. Every time she’s near him, every time he thinks about her, they crawling under his skin like an itch he can’t scratch.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “for pushing you away.”

The air from his lungs scratch at his throat.

“Dick,” Kory breathes.

“I shouldn’t have left you like that with no explanation,” he says squeezing the wheel tight, “I was angry. About Donna. About Adamson…the case” He turns to look at her, “Angry at you, for not telling me who you were.”

Kory holds his gaze with a mannequin face. “You know who I _am_ ,” she says in a small voice.

“You…I,” Dick stammers. Does he know this Kory? He sighs and drops his head, clutching the wheel for support. “You make me feel safe and…alive and,” he admits, “and..”

 _Oh fuck’s sake._ He can’t make his words line up right, can’t get his meaning across like he wants. Everything in his head is telling him to stop.

She doesn’t say anything. She’s just looking at him and her eyes are sharp. Dick feels himself retreating further inside himself.

“You left for _months_. I didn’t know where you were, or if you were ok. You didn’t even call,” her voice quakes, but her face is hard.

“I know,” he says swallowing the broiling knot in his throat. She turns and looks out the window again. The ongoing traffic hums along, shaking the car.

“What were you doing in New Mexico,” he asks, “with Roy?”

“Are you fucking serious?” Kory asks angrily.

“I just want to know where I stand,” he says stiffly. Kory laughs derisively.

“How dare you,” she rumbles, “I have been all over this fucking country with you. I have worked from 6:30 in the morning till 9 at night with you. I patched you up when you bled. I shared everything in and about my life _with you_. I’ve spent more time chasing Rachel and playing masks with you than I’ve spent being with Gar.” Her voice breaks and she turns away, one fist clenched in her lap the other against her mouth. “What do you want from me, Dick Grayson? What have I not already given you?” she cries.

Dick’s body is pressed into the side of his seat. This is not what he wanted. This is not the conversation he meant to start. He looks up at the ceiling with a shuddering breath.

“Is it over between us, Kory?”

Kory looks out the window, fat tears drippling from her eyes.

“Do you love me?” she whispers, turning to him.

“W-what?” His blood runs cold.

“Do you love me?” she asks again, louder with more urgency. It’s like there’s no air left in his body. Is that what he wanted to tell her? He feels like he might hyperventilate.

He thinks about the first time he saw her strutting into the precinct on those impossibly long legs, mane of bright curly hair that she’s almost always straightened since then, and those eyes—like the green light that lures Gatsby across the bay. He thinks about how he couldn’t look away. How, even at that first moment, his body told him she was special. He remembers seeing her with Gar over dinner, feeling the edges of the protective shroud of warmth and devotion Kory casts over that kid, and knowing that someone who can love like that is someone he wants in his life too.

Not for the first time his mind plays a montage of soft moments he’s shared with Kory: waking up in the pre-dawn haze to find her sleeping face inches from his; their hot, frantic breathing in the rental car outside the Cleveland airport; Kory squeezing his shoulder reassuringly before he walks into a briefing or as he sits in the flight seat of her ship. He thinks of Kory in the sunrise light, head against the window of the Porsche as they drive, or in the evening laughing over a diner milkshake. He thinks of the gut-wrenching pain of knowing she was out there finding comfort in another man.

Dick sighs and is silent, Kory’s eyes tracing him like she can read his thoughts. He looks at his hands, still nicked and bruised from his last undercover escapade and thinks of Bruce. Bruce with his lumbering ego and his big, empty house. Looking at his own hands, he sees Bruce’s. _That’s not what I want._

“God, I love you, Kory,” he sputters somewhere between laughing and crying. He feels dizzy like everything just inside of him is being dumped onto the floor of the car. Kory cups his cheek in her hand, stroking his face with her thumb.

“Then why would it be over?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kory is singing to the Anarbor song title “18”. (Also on the aforementioned It’s Ya Boy Roy playlist...)


	16. (2018) Help Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, it's Rachel!

Everything is gray staircases winding this way and that. An MC Escher painting with seven dimensions. She feels the stretch of her consciousness against the edge of every step.

_Ha Ha Ha Haaaaaa!_

The deep, rumbling laugh of the horned one echoes through the world again. She draws her mind inward to the center of this maze, trying to find a memory, a person, an anchor. She closes her eyes. Melissa, she chants. Melissa. Melissa. Melissa. Rachel can feel the tiredness folding in around her. Her limbs are heavy. The urge to lay down and rest seeming to turn up the gravitation pull of the floor. No. She can’t do that again. The open flesh on her back smarts, bile crawling to her mouth.

Melissa.

_Melissa!_

Melissa’s memory appears to her, a specter of glittering blue. Rachel is weak: Melissa should be flesh not shimmer. Her eyelids grow heavy. She’ll take what she can get.

“Rachel,” says Melissa’s shade reaching to embrace the girl.

“Mom!” she sighs stumbling into Melissa’s arms.

“Lies!” spits the dark thing inside of her. It rips into the memory with its black claws, shredding it into air as Melissa’s screams echo through the expanse and Rachel falls to the floor.

Her knees are bruised. She doesn’t know how much longer she can stay here.

“Submit to me, daughter,” his voice says from her skull. It hurts. _It hurts._ She crumples into ball on the floor, clutching her head, gasping.

“Rachel?” echoes an unfamiliar man’s voice. “Rachel?” calls another, higher pitched voice: the voice of a woman. The Trigon headache momentarily subsides.

-

They’re in a car, the woman is driving. It’s a different car than the last time Rachel saw them. Something bad happened to the last car. Rachel feels the remembered shake of an explosion.

“Submit, daughter, they’ll never find you!”

Rachel crawls under a staircase pulling her hoodie around her. Trigon’s hooves click down the stairs searching for her. She trembles, holding a hand over her mouth. Focus, she tells herself. Go to them.

The brown-haired man is asleep. Unconscious? His mind is closer this way, Rachel realizes.

Trigon is close, she smells his dank breath on the air as he stands, waiting. Rachel imagines a small door beside her and so it appears. She opens it and crawls through, pulling her knees into her chest. If she can be with the two that are looking for her, she can remove her mind from this place. _Focus._

The brown-haired man twitches on the backseat. He doesn’t speak, but Rachel hears the word on his lips, “Kory.” She can feel the pry of her mind as it tries to touch his. She’s pushing, willing herself entry. But his mind pushes back and she is repelled. Rachel gasps and she is back in the secret room under the staircase in the gray hell that is all winding staircases.

-

His name is Richard, ‘Dick.’ Rachel’s sure she can reach him this time. Since that first time she reached out to his unconscious mind she’s found it easier to find him in the darkness. He thinks of her often, this gives her a bridge.

“RAVEN!” growls Trigon. Rachel smirks, the closer she sends her mind to Dick, the farther away she sails from Trigon. She’s not sure why. It doesn’t matter why. Focus, she thinks, find Dick. She sends her consciousness like a tendril into the dark. At first nothing, then he is bright in the darkness. The tendrils of her power wrap around his spirit mind. He’s sleeping, happy, his defenses lower than she’s ever seen them. Rachel worms into him unconsciousness. Finally, she thinks, exhaling in triumph.

His memories hit her all at once, a kaleidoscope of moving images. Rachel falls forward, swallowed by the blur, unable to control the rush of images.

_The red-haired woman—Kory—is sitting in front of her, her smile is bright and warm and Rachel feels her heart soften. Blood rises to her cheeks as she watches Kory’s full mouth curl around the straw of the milkshake._

_Rachel moves her broad, callused hands forward finding the soft skin at the back of the Kory’s neck. She bends into a kiss. Her arms embrace Kory. She’s warm. They’re entwined._ The memories braid and twist into one. Rachel is dizzy.

_Rachel feels shame and something else—tickling, fluttering. She feels loved as Kory pats an icepack into her scraped hands._ The weight of the shame weighs on her, dragging her down. Rachel gasps, clawing herself out of the sinking suck of this shame that cloyingly familiar but not hers to hold.

_Rachel leans onto her elbow. A green haired boy laughs. Kory smiles softly. Dinner is delicious, but not as filling as this feeling._ Rachel wants to stay here. She can’t tell if it’s her want or Dick’s. The more of his memories she swims through the more entangled she becomes.

_Secrets. Masks. Batman. Spaceship. Spaceship. Rachel is scared, giddy, content._ The memories are moving too fast. Stop, she commands. Stop. Stop.

_She’s being punched again and again until her knees crack into the concrete floor. Three of them are on her. She crawls forward, trying to get away. One of the men kicks her hard in the stomach and she falls tears coming to her eyes. The beating continues. She squeezes her eyes shut. She misses Kory. Focus on Kory, she thinks as the blows continue to rain down on her. A whistle. Shouting._ The pain is visceral. She’s drowning in him. Stop. Stop, she demands.

_A different pain, sharper, more concentrated. It’s like she’s drowning in pain. She’s gripping the steering wheel. The silhouette of mountains mocks her._ STOP.

Rachel can feel her legs under her again. She opens her eyes, breathing hard.

“Found you!” laughs Trigon snatching her in his gargantuan hands.

“HELP ME!” Rachel screams.


	17. (2018) I Ache for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut warning.

For weeks he’d go to sleep with the ghost of her smell, or her voice, or the feel of her skin dancing in front of him, just out of reach. More than once, he wakes up hard and throbbing, frustrated beyond words he couldn’t finish in life what he’s started in his dreams. Missing Kory is like being hungry, a low, ever present aching. Holding her in his arms again, pressing his fingers into her supple skin, burying himself in her hair feel unreal and only stokes his need to claim her.

He kisses her, softly at first closed lips meeting. Then Kory’s fingers find his hair, shooting electricity into his spine, and his mouth falls open, and the kiss deepens.

\--

“Tell me you need it,” growls Kory grinding against him. Her hands pinning Dick’s hands over his head. The angle of her feline body over him produces a dizzying view of her bouncing breasts.

“I need it so bad,” he mewls, shaking.

Kory smiles, breathing audibly. She moves Dick’s wrists into one hand and caresses his scalp with the other. Her kisses are wet and hungry as she plunges her tongue into his mouth.

Dick’s eyelids fall shut and he bucks under her, so needing to be inside her. He doesn’t mean to thrash, or arch his body toward her, or whine. She leans back pulling herself away from his cock. He shivers.

“Oh Dick,” she purrs directly into his ear, “we’re on my terms now.”

She goes on teasing the sensitive skin of his ear with her tongue. Every nerve in his skin screams to life.

“Kory,” he stammers. He wants to touch her, needs to, but she’s so strong and no amount of struggling is getting his arms free. “Please,” he begs.

“Mmm,” she purrs, rubbing herself on his weeping cock. “I like it when you beg.”

“Please,” he says again, eyebrows knitting together, looking deep into her green eyes.

“Tell me what you want,” she taunts.

“I,” he starts. She licks up his neck, kissing that spot behind his ear, restarting his brain. “I. _God._ Fuck! I wanna fuck you.”

Kory bends forward, pressing her soft, hot, sweat slick body against him. She raises her torso and slowly releases his hands. She kisses along his jaw suddenly soft, gentle. She moves to his neck kissing, nipping just hard enough to make Dick crazy. He moans. She makes a muffled, happy noise.

Her long fingered hand pushes his bangs away from his sweaty forehead. Dick’s hands trace down the curve of her spine, fingers plunging into the back of her panties, smoothing over the slope of her ass. He pulls off her wet panties and when she resettles over him, he drags his thumb over her dripping lips, teasing her clitoris.

“More,” Kory gasps bucking against his hand desperately.

Dick fucks her with two fingers, and then three, until she’s panting and squirming and thrusting. Then he stops, watching her pained expression. They tremble to the sound of their own breathing. Dick watches her for permission as he wriggles himself under her thighs. His hands ride along her strong, thick legs gripping her, pulling her lips to his greedy mouth.

“By X’Hal,” she whines as his tongue slips inside of her: languorous, hungry.

He sucks and laps at her, relishing how her flesh yields to his mouth. He hears the thump of her hand as she catches herself on the headboard. He licks deeper. Only when Kory’s thighs tremble around his face and she’s gasping does he stop. He wants to come with her. He _needs_ to. Kory pulls herself off his face shaking like a leaf in the wind.

He loops his arms around her pulling her onto the bed, kissing her desperately. He climbs on top of her nudging her muscled legs apart. Both of them suck in a sharp breath as he presses the head of his cock against the her sensitive, shivering entrance. Her body is rigid. Her eyes burning into his with a silent plea.

“I ache for you,” she husks.

Dick is beside himself. He slams into her until her ass collides with the bones of his hips. Gasping into her tightness, he pulls himself out as far as he can stand and rams into her again. He’s lost control. He has no sense of timing, no ability to slowly build Kory’s heat the way she’s built his. He’s frenzied. Each jerking thrust is met with a staccato ‘ah’ from Kory, and Dick feels himself entering oblivion.

His quaking moans are no more than gibberish.

“Fuck me,” she begs, “just like that. _I need you._ ”

She clenches around his cock and he erupts, breath knocking out of him, body weightless. A flood of trembling, quivering wetness gushes out of Kory as she too falls over the edge. Her head cranes back into the pillow exposing her long, perfect neck. Dick falls into her, gratified and almost smug in his knowledge that she can take his weight. He sinks his teeth into the base of her neck, sucking, marking. _Mine._

\--

Dick thinks he might be dead, because laying here, head sunk deep into Kory’s naked chest, he must be in heaven.

_STOP!_ Screams something sharp and foreign in his head. Dick jerks up off Kory, clutching his head.

“Dic--”

The portable scanner link that Kory and Gar rigged to intercept the signal from Kory’s ship buzzes and vibrates wildly on the motel dresser.

Kory sits up. The black metal tablet jolts and a scream rips through the room.

“HELP ME!” it roars.

Kory and Dick jump to attention.


	18. (2018) Mind Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get spooky the closer we get to finding Rachel

“Okay, don’t get mad,” starts Kory winding a lock of her hair around her finger. Dick groans knowing that—whatever it is—it’s probably something he won’t like and will—very likely—make him mad.

“Virginia’s recalling me,” she says picking at her nails.

“Virginia? The Bureau. Shit Kory,” says Dick flashing his attention between the road and her face. “When?”

Kory makes a face.

“When?” he asks again.

“I’m already supposed to be back,” she says under her breath.

Dick scoffs and nearly misses the highway turn off.

“Fuck,” he sighs.

“Can you fix it?” she asks. Dick laughs sourly. Kory bats her eyelashes. “Come on you’ve got connections, you’re good at fixing things,” Kory presses.

Dick exhales, “How officially are you working for them? I thought you said--”

“Officially enough to be recalled apparently,” she sighs.

Ok, he thinks _. Great._ He mentally adds that to the list of his problems.

\--

“Is this the place?”

“That’s what the scanner’s saying,” says Kory looking down at the portable scanner link.

This place is farmland on the outskirts of Egypt, Indiana. The lock up the car. The wheat fields are high. It’s quiet, but not preternaturally so. Every few minutes a long car barrels down the buckling asphalt road. Kory brushes an armful of wheat aside and begins to make her way deeper into the field, following the scanner’s directional pointer. Dick is close behind.

“How did she get all the way out here,” Dick wonders aloud.

“Who knows,” asks Kory taking an abrupt left. “Did you see this from the car?” she asks pointing at the shanty, weather beaten shack.

The shed-sized building seems to flicker and tremble in the late afternoon sun.

“No,” says Dick unsettled.

“I think we found her,” says Kory slipping the scanner link into her jacket pocket. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he says pushing open the splintering wood door.

The sensation of entering the house is a strange one. It’s a cold, sucking feeling like something clammy is being dragged across the flesh of their necks. Kory shutters. The inside of the house is bigger, much bigger, than the outside. Dick motions Kory to stay close.

“This looks like the inside of 91 North Park,” breathes Kory picking up a tiny porcelain cat and replacing it by the crucifixes on the windowsill. Dick recognizes the mint colored walls and yellow wood furniture: this is Rachel’s house.

“Rachel?” Dick calls. His voice echoes impossibly, like they’re in a cave.

“I don’t like where this is going,” says Kory. “ _Oh, God._ Dick, check out this hallway.”

Dick peeks his head into a hallway he recognizes as leading to Melissa’s bedroom. This hallway stretches and stretches until the light disappears and all that’s visible is a prick of darkness. Dick takes a deep breath.

“Rachel’s room is upstairs,” he says to Kory, shrugging as if to say, ‘worth a look.’ Kory nods but when she steps forward, she’s falling. She screams at the suddenness of it.

“Dick!” But Dick’s gone. The house is gone. The world shutters around her, mint walls melting into a swirl of lights and then stars. She slams to a stop and she’s sitting in her nanny’s room.

“What the fuck,” she exclaims, not in English but—to her surprise—in Tamaranean.

\--

“Kory!” yells Dick. She was right behind him a second ago. He turns around and he’s in the back of an ambulance. No, he thinks, not again.

“Rachel!” he yells, refusing to look at the two bodies in the gurneys in front of him. “Rachel, I know this isn’t real!”

He knows this isn’t real, even though it smells sterile and musky and real. He knows it isn’t real. Even though he feels his heart thumping in his chest just like he’s back in that day: fourteen years old, in his blue and black unitard, wrapped in a shock blanket, driving to the hospital as a formality knowing his parents were dead the minute he failed to catch them. His skin feels like ice. The anger and guilt of this memory are leeching his focus. 

“Rachel!” he shouts to remind himself that this just a memory.

“Richard?” rasps a voice from the gurney. His mom’s voice. Dick can’t help that he goes to her. She sits up, pale but alive. Mary Grayson. Mary Grayson with her blue eyes, and her soft features, and her familiar smell. She reaches for Dick’s hand and he gives it to her without hesitation.

“It’s ok,” she says, and Dick wants, more than anything, to believe it.

“Rachel,” he says out loud unable to pull himself from this shadow of his mother, “Rachel if you’re out there we don’t want to hurt her. We’re here to help you. Please help us find you.”

“You can’t help me,” says Mary shaking her head sadly.

“Why,” asks Dick desperately struggling with the rush of emotions that comes to his voice.

“I’m too weak,” says Mary, her long, wavy, black hair flickering short and straight. Her face rounds and plumps to that of a much younger woman.

“Let us help you.”

“I’m so tired,” says Mary, hair lengthening again, tears dribbling from her eyes. Dick grasps her shoulders.

“Stay with me, Rachel, I’m right here,” he implores trying to get the woman to look at him.

“So is he,” she trembles.

The man that sits up from the gurney next to Mary is not Dick’s father.

\--

“ _K’norfka_?” asks Kory cautiously approaching the broad-shouldered man with his bald head and well-groomed, jewel-ladened beard. The sight of him brings tears to her eyes.

“Koriand’r,” smiles the man. Kory notices immediately that his manner is off.

“Galfore,” Kory says taking his hand, “What is this?”

“This is an illusion, my child,” he rumbles with the same understated grandeur as before.

Galfore is never this dour when it’s just the two of them, Kory thinks sadly. She’s struck with a hollow pang of homesickness. This is an illusion, she reminds herself, following Galfore’s words. She sits at his feet like she did so many times growing up and wishes more than anything that he would braid her hair and tell her the tales of his journeys into the wilds of the Vega system.

“Why am I here? I was on Earth, looking for the girl Rachel. She is known to us as the Raven.” It’s good to speak in her mother tongue again. She relishes the nature curl of vowels in Tamaranean, so unlike the clipped rush of English.

“She is here,” Galfore replies, placing his great hand on Kory’s cheek.

“Perhaps. Yet undiscovered. How can I find her, Galfore? I have been long in searching.”

“I’m here,” says Galfore, bright green eyes darkening to blue.

“Rachel?” asks Kory switching to English. Galfore nods.

“How?” Kory starts, brain waking up to reality. “Tell me how to get you out of here.” Galfore’s body stiffens.

“He’s got Dick,” Galfore says suddenly panicked.

“Let me help,” Kory says squeezing the Galfore’s massive hand. “Tell me what to do.”

“You have to find him!” shouts the voice of a young girl.

The memory of Galfore burns into a streak of white-hot starfire obfuscating everything. Kory covers her eyes, the plummeting feeling pulling at her once again. Kory wills her powers to let her fly. She jerks up, spinning dizzily, careening this way at that unable to gauge up from down in the meaningless swirl of lights and colors.

Kory’s starting to panic. She closes her eyes and focuses in on the years of training she undertook on Tamaran. _You have to find him_ , the voice echoes. Kory can do that. She’s found Dick before. She thinks about that last time, in the rain, in the alley in DC.

The world crashes to a stop and there she is again: in DC. She’s soaking wet and the streetlights cast an orange glow over the wet pavement.

“Dick,” she says running over to where she found him the last time. He’s fighting Adamson. His costume is different, darker—there’s no cape.

For such a thick set man, Dick moves like a cat. He leaps, avoiding a bludgeoning smack from Adamson’s tire iron. Dick’s speed is impressive, but then, Kory doesn’t expect Adamson to be as spry as he is either. Dick's forearms collides with Adamson’s in a hard thud. He blocks the reach of Adamson’s weapon as he pulls something from the back of his suit. Kory’s expecting his telescopic Bo staff, but no this is a baton—an escrima stick. Dick’s hit is fast and sharp. Adamson jerks forward under the force of the blow. Dick whips out another escrima stick.

He smacks the black batons together and their heads crackle with lightening. Beneath him Adamson snarls, the back of his shirt ripping down the center. Red skin, like the red earth of New Mexico, ripples through the shreds of the cotton button up. He’s growing larger. There’s a grinding of bone as two, thick horns force their way out of Adamson’s skull. The scream is unbearable, inhuman—the dying cry of a soul being clawed from its body. Dick stumbles back out of the way of this hooved creature.

“Dick,” Kory yells again, running toward him. This time he turns to her, wide eyed.

“What’re you wearing?” he asks.

She looks down to see battle armor. She’s wearing the purple leather armor of her people. Silver metal plates her shins and forearms. She feels, for the first time, the silver helmet that frames her face and knows, even without seeing, that a glowing green gem sits at its center. She feels a smile creep over her face.

The ground trembles as the creature runs at them. Dick sinks to his knees for balance, Kory catapults herself over him, armored boot cracking into the jaw of the creature. Unphased, it grabs her mid-air and flings her into the brick siding of a nearby building. Dick exchanges a barrage of electric blows with the thing, huffing and grunting and dodging, as it parries and charges him.

Dick rolls out of the ways of the thing’s gargantuan fists. Kory pulls herself off the ground, green eyes burning. She adjusts her vambrace and draws in a filling breath stilling herself to produce a searing jet of starfire. As she aims she sees this creature in its full, two-story, height. _Trigon_. Kory propels herself into the air and kicks a crater into the side of the building launching herself forward. She shoots a hail of starbolts into the Trigon. He roars, red flesh shuddering under the smoking burns. His yellow eyes light red. The air shimmers around him as it heats to a boil. Kory throws herself onto Dick as Trigon’s eyes erupt into red, hot beams of light.

Kory howls in pain as the heat melts the back panel of armor into a paste and sears the skin off her back.

“KORY!” Dick yells hauling her behind a dumpster. “No, no, no, no, Kory!”

Trigon’s laugh shakes the air and vibrates through Dick’s body.

“Rachel?” Dick shouts, turning this way and that, cradling Kory against him as she sucks in one whimpering breath after another.

Dick doesn’t know how to fight this thing. The orange glow of the alley is snuffed like a flame, engulfed in black. A cold shudder washes over Dick. He clasps Kory’s hand in his. Overhead there writhes a purple-rimmed, undulating darkness. Like the eye of a black hole, this darkness sucks the light toward it until Dick can no longer see Kory even though he feels her next to him.

The sudden silence shatters with the ear-piercing shriek of a great bird. A raven. Dick hugs Kory close, and pokes his head out to see beyond the dumpster as the light returns. From the center of the winged darkness a small gray light becomes ever brighter until, at last, a child no older than fifteen hangs in the air before it.

_Rachel._

She is enrobed in a billowing cloak of gray. Her face masked in the shadow beneath the hood. As she breathes to life, four red eyes glow from her face. She lets out a terrible scream like that of the great raven, and the earth shakes until windows shatter in the buildings above and bricks rain unto the pavement. Trigon’s white hair blows around him--scarves in a storm.

“Daughter! How good of you to join us,” says Trigon in a bone-vibrating tenor.

“You are not my father!” she screams. “And I won’t let you kill them!”

“I will grind their bones to dust and feed them to you, my love,” says Trigon lumbering toward where Dick and Kory are hiding.

“No,” Rachel cries. “I’m done suffering under your weight! This is my mind, now GET OUT.”

Gray light embraces the undulating darkness sending it exploding out from Rachel’s hands. The force of the blast makes Dick’s ears ring and throws him and Kory into a wall. Dick curls his body over Kory as the building around them begins tumbling into rubble. Kory pushes them out of the way of a falling brick balcony with a panting grunt. As the top of the building rains projectile debris, Kory forces herself out of Dick’s arms. She pushes herself into the air and erupts in a dome of starfire that incinerates the falling dangers around them into a fine dust. Dick jumps to his feet as her body folds and she plummets. He barely manages to catch her and has to roll to stop the momentum.

Rachel’s darkness spans from her like four, great, dark arms squeezing Trigon as he growls.

“You are weak, daughter! Give up, their souls belong to me.”

“I am not weak,” she roars, darkness tightening. “These people more about me than you ever did. I have seen their love, felt their affection as they looked for me!”

Trigon laughs spitefully, “I am your blood, Raven. You would betray me for these pathetic mortals?”

“Your blood means nothing to me. You’ve never loved me! You’ve never cared about me! I don’t need you and I command you to leave!”

Trigon’s torn, red hands shake as he curls them around the darkness gripping his biceps. “Weak,” he rasps, crushing into Rachel’s power. She yelps and shudders in pain.

“Rachel,” says Dick standing up with Kory draped unconsciously over him. “You can do this! I know you’re stronger than him. We’ve been following you all this time and you’re still fighting. You’re the strongest kid I’ve ever known.”

Rachel turns to him, red eyes widening. He can see her trembling from here. He remembers the manic, scared energy she pushed through his memory of his mother. She must be terrified.

“Rachel, family is more than blood. Family is people who care about you.”

“Shut up, mortal,” says Trigon crashing his foot into the pavement so that it rips open and Dick falls to his knees. 

“Don’t let him make you doubt, Rachel. You’re stronger than he is!” pants Dick.

 _“Noreceni’k Akutem Azarath aeGalaem ta’Trigon”_ Rachel chants raising her arms to the sky as her darkness continues to bind Trigon. 

Dick feels an uncomfortable ripping in his sternum. Kory moans in pain. Tiny beads of blood, like a string of rubies, flow from his chest and Kory’s. The blood spins and tangles together congealing into an edged stone.

“Grant me the power of Azarath to contain the demon, Trigon,” Rachel chants in an echoing monotone, “ _Azarath Metrion Zinthos._ Azarath give me strength.”

The stone flies to Rachel, blazing brighter than any other light and gathering still more light as she continues to chant. The wind whips violently. The ground beneath Trigon lights red. The wings of the great raven release from him and spread across the sky behind Rachel. The raven shrieks, it’s cry ringing into the night. Trigon is engulfed in red light as he howls and thrashes until the earth sucks him in.

Then at last the world is still.

“She did it, Kory,” Dick laughs resettling Kory’s weight on his shoulder. “Kory?” he asks again, but Kory isn’t breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh so you guys thought we were done with angst… -laughs-


	19. (2018) Rachel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion. It's a longer one.

This is the first time it really hits him—that Kory isn’t human. She isn’t breathing and he doesn’t know for how long. Everything around him is spinning and warping as Rachel, or Trigon’s, illusion dispels. He’s in the rubble of a shack, likely the shack that he and Kory first entered, but it doesn’t matter now. Rachel’s breathing is ragged and Kory’s not breathing at all. He lays Kory down and raises her legs up with scraps of wood. He’s pumping her chest and administering CPR, dreading the sick irony that he needs “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees to keep the right count. It’s not working, but he doesn’t know if that’s because Kory’s anatomy is different or because...because…

He needs to check on Rachel. _Please, Kory._ He should call an ambulance. He should keep performing CPR until they arrive. _Please, Kory stay with me._ Rachel wheezes.

“Rachel,” Dick calls in between compressions. He finds her shape in the rubble. She’s moving. _Thank god._

“Rachel,” he says in a tight voice. Rachel groans, stumbling through the wreckage toward him. The kid looks awful. Her black clothes are ripped and muddy. Her hair is matted and she’s unbearably gaunt.

“…Dick,” Rachel rasps. He nods, unable to focus on much but the continued compression of Kory’s chest.

“Rachel,” says Dick in calm, authoritative voice that shocks even him, “reach into my jacket pocket and call 911.”

\--

The ride in the ambulance is agonizing. Kory’s breathing now, but only shallowly and her pulse is faint and irregular. Both she and Rachel are strapped onto gurneys, Dick only manages to evade the same fate by profusely arguing his health, though he too is badly burned. He can’t stop looking at Kory. How could this happen?

He knows Kory can get hurt. He’s been unfortunate enough to see it happen, but she always bounces back so quickly. He’s the one limping around for days with a black eye and a cracked rib. She’s supposed to be the one that teases him and refills the ice pack and hugs him softly avoiding the bruises. How could he let this happen? His mind reels with falling bricks and starfire explosions.

He has to call Bruce. He can’t take Kory and Rachel to a normal hospital—the staff wouldn’t know what to do. He also doesn’t have the patience to argue visitation and meta-human hospital transfer rights. _Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK_! This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Bruce, it’s me. Yeah, hi, I’m great,” he snaps, “I need a favor.”

\--

He’s holding Kory’s hand as they transfer her gurney into the new ambulance and then into the private hospital room. Rachel is sleeping now, sedated, which is probably for the best. The poor kid is malnourished, extremely dehydrated, and her whole torso is a mess of oozing, bloody gashes. Dick can’t imagine the shit Rachel has seen and been through these last three years. He’s sick to his stomach even thinking about it.

“What’re we gonna do with you?” he whispers clutching the edge of her sick bed.

It’s hard to explain, but Dick feels like he knows this girl. He knows facts, sure. Three years of tracking a person will clue you into a lot of things about them. He’s knows where she shops—basically Goodwill and any mall store that sells black band Ts—he’s seen her wardrobe. Knows that bands she likes (are the vocals screamed? Rachel likes them) and who her friends are (only really seems to have the one. Hannah. Likes horses). He’s been in her room. Shit, at some point, he’s read her diary (a lot of very bleak poetry).

But this feeling of kinship, there’s more to it than just the passing facts of her life. It’s stupid, but he feels like Rachel knows him too. They’ve never even had a conversation, but they way she looks at him, it’s like she’s seeing deep into his selfhood. He’s being stupid.

He’s trying to distract himself from Kory whom he can’t be with because she’s in surgery. He grips the sick bed tighter.

Where does Rachel go after this? Foster care? His viscerally returns to being 14 in that hard-backed chair, Bruce just outside the door as the social worker chastises him. No, he won’t put Rachel back into the system. She’s been through too much. She needs someone who’s going to understand her, what she’s been through. Plus the kid has powers. He’s not even really sure the full extent, but if she’s powerful enough to communicate telepathically with him and Kory from miles away and destroy an interdimensional space demon…then _shit_. What is he going to make that Carl and Nancy Suburb’s problem? He scoffs.

Rachel’s his responsibility, always has been. He’s not leaving here without her.

“Excuse me, Mr. Grayson?” asks a soft voice from behind him.

He can tell from the nurse’s face that he won’t like what she has to say. 

Dick is curled into a knot with his head in his hands. It’s been hours since they started the surgery. Gar should be here any minute, his hour and a half flight landed almost exactly on the hour and the hospital is only 20 minutes from the airport. Dick meticulously opens his GPS and recalculates the route, adding the minutes in his mind to keep from going insane. Once, when he was 16, he can Bruce fought Harvey Dent. Bruce lost his footing, fell 12 feet—still holding Dent—and landed unto the hood of a parked car. He broke his knee and the injury made him slow, slow enough that if Dick hadn’t been there, there wouldn’t be a Batman now. That feeling is the closest to what Dick feels now, except that he wasn’t there to pull Kory out of way. He rakes his fingers through his hair.

Gar’s frantic footsteps echo down the corridor as he runs up to the locked room. Dick stands up to meet him.

“Gar,” he says in a brittle voice. “I’m so sorry.”

He is sorry but somehow it doesn’t seem like the right thing to say. ‘How was your flight’ is also wrong and telling the kid that his mom is going to be ok when Dick really doesn’t know if she will be is wrong too. This whole situation is wrong, it shouldn’t be Kory in there. Gar’s face is gray. He’s panting, out of breath like he just ran all the way here. His eyes are wet and red and so are his cheeks.

“Can I see her?” he trembles. Dick shakes his head, no.

“She’s in surgery right now,” Dick sighs.

“How did this happen?” Gar asks, but he already knows because Dick went over this with him on the phone. “You’re Robin,” he says with a shaking voice, “Robin doesn’t lose people.” Dick feels his chest crumble: Robin loses people all the time. The thought is bitter in his mouth and he doesn’t let it out.

“I’m sorry Gar,” he says again, because there’s nothing else he can say.

“I don’t care,” Gar breaks, “I don’t care how sorry you are! Just, please, where is she?”

Dick swallows the dread he feels, placing what he hopes is a steady hand, on Gar’s shoulder. A flash of claws glints in the hallway fluorescents as Gar’s hands clench at his side.

“How could you let this happen?” Gar cries.

Dick flinches at the accusation, the hot burn of tears nagging at his eyes. He takes a breath, or he tries to, the breath catches in his throat and he’s unable to say anything. An overwhelming cascade of feelings hits him: fear—that he’ll lose Kory; anger—at the situation but ultimately at himself for letting Kory push herself over the edge protecting him; guilt—that he might rob Gar of another parent; and regret—that he loves Kory more than he’s ever told her. He runs a face over his hand and sucks in a desperate breath. Years of training, both Batman and police, kick in.

“Gar,” Dick says with a flat, stable voice, “We just need to stay calm until they finish the surgery.”

Gar melts into the form of small green dog and curls into a ball under the waiting room chairs.

-

Rachel wakes up to a cup of water and bowl of lime jello with the note: ‘Please eat. I’ll be back when you wake up. -Dick.’ She feels a lot better than she did yesterday. She’s feels a lot better than she has in a long time. She tilts the bowl into her mouth and loudly sucks up the jello, using her hand to scoop when she’s down to the crumbled chunks at the bottom. It’s good. She could definitely eat more. She starts to stand but the tangle of cords and drips and bandages keeps her close to the bed.

“Hello?” she calls.

Out of habit she draws into herself, third eye dialing toward her. _Dick,_ she calls.

In the other room, Dick jolts up.

“I think Rachel’s awake,” he says to Gar.

Moments later he’s standing in front of her. He’s bigger in real life than in her head. Taller and thicker. Maybe, thinks Rachel, it’s because he’s often a child in his thoughts.

“How’re you doing?” he asks. His voice is like she imagined. He always talks like he’s coaxing a scared animal out from a corner.

“I’m fine,” she says, because right now she is. “How did you find me?”

Dick rubs the back of his head. He smells like he hasn’t showered in a while. She nonchalantly smells her armpit. She hasn’t showered in a while either.

“That’s a pretty long story, how ‘bout we get you something else to eat first. Let me call the nurse. Also, I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be standing yet, so just…yeah. Good.”

Wow. He rambles a lot more in real life as well.

Rachel scoots gingerly back onto the bed, avoiding brushing her cuts as best as she can. The nurse comes back in and runs a diagnostic as Dick taps his legs in the waiting chair. Rachel’s heart is beating faster and faster. She doesn’t like this nurse. In fact, she doesn’t like any of the nurses or paramedics or anyone else she’s come into contact with at this hospital other than Dick and Kory.

“Stop,” Rachel wheezes.

“Honey, I just need to take out the IV.”

“Stop touching me!” Rachel screams and the force of the scream comes out louder and more violently than anything Rahcel expects.

The nurse is launched backwards into the wall with a crack and the nearby monitor falls to the floor in a wash of glass. The lights flicker. Dick is standing, ears covered, eyes wide.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Rachel sobs.

“It’s ok,” says Dick, “I’m here. You’re ok.” He’s coaxing a scared animal again. She takes a shuddering breath. “You’re ok. No one is going to hurt you.” He’s walking toward her, hands stretched.

“I want to leave,” Rachel begs.

Dick nods, pulling the blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapping it around her.

“I’m gonna help this nurse, up and then we can leave ok?” he asks. Rachel nods.

Dick walks into the corridor with Rachel bundled under his arm. In truth, he has no idea where he’s supposed to take her. He shouldn’t leave Gar alone. He shouldn’t leave Kory.

“I can help,” says Rachel quietly, padding along the hallway with bare feet.

“Huh?”

“I can help, Kory.”

“Have you ever done this before?”

“Not on a person.” Dick swallows and turns to Gar, the boy can’t bear to look.

“You should probably stand back,” Rachel says visibly nervous. Gar turns to Dick with a panicked expression. Dick squeezes Gar’s shoulder and nods. They step back.

Rachel takes a deep breath in, eyes closing as the undulating darkness seeps from her like wings. Gar gasp and steps forward toward Kory. Dick holds him back. The darkness shudders, airborne, and then crashes into Kory in a wave. Gar trembles under Dick’s grasp, Dick folds him against his chest. Hugging Gar as much to comfort himself as anyone else. A red cut opens in the center of Rachel’s forehead exposing a blood colored gem.

Kory’s body fades sickly and ashen. Dick can’t watch, buries his face in Gar’s hair. The room shakes. The temperature rises like an oven door has been pulled opened. Dick looks up. Rachel’s eyes shine like red-hot coals, her teeth bared, black veins bulge from her neck into her face.

“Rachel,” Dick says cautiously. Kory screams awake, body alight with bright orange starfire. The room lights up like every wall and surface is an LED light, the undulating darkness weaving in and out of the light like a tear in reality.

“Mom!” cries Gar at the same time that Dick yells, “Kory!”

Kory gasps, eyes wide, her skin cooling to a human tone. The light in the room fades to normal. Kory looks between the three of them in confusion. Gar leaps into her arms. She’s confused but she giggles.

“Hey baby,” she says like she’s in her kitchen and it’s a normal day.

She hugs him wiping the tears from his face with gentle hands. Gar shrinks into a kitten and nuzzles under her arm, embarrassed to keep crying, but clearly needing the physical assurance that Kory is ok.

“Rachel?” Kory asks looking at the girl for the first time. The girl looks up embarrassed to be intruding on such an intimate moment. Kory extends her hand, Rachel steps forward taking it.

“Do you know who I am?” Kory asks. Rachel nods. Kory takes inventory of the scrawny, pale girl. Her cheekbones jut in sharp angles from her face, blue eyes glistening from the bottom of the hollow craters. “You found us,” Kory whispers. She squeezes the girl's hand.

“Has Dick fed you?” she asks.

“C’mon, Star, I can take care of things for ten minutes without you,” Dick jokes in a brittle voice.

“mHMM,” says Kory still examining Rachel. Gar meows and she pulls him closer.

She fusses over them for several minutes before she’s satisfied that neither of the kids are hurt. “Gar, Rachel, can we have a minute?” she says looking at Dick.

Gar doesn’t want to let go of Kory. Dick doesn’t blame him. Kory kisses the top of Gar’s green head and squeezes him. She whispers something to him that Dick can’t quite make out. Gar nods. The green cat cuts an uneasy look at Dick as he lopes out. Rachel tiptoes out behind him. The door clicks shut. Dick hasn’t cried this whole time, but he’s sobbing now.

“Why are you crying when I’m the one tied to a hospital bed,” Kory jokes, voice raspy.

Dick would stop if he could. He stills Bruce’s incessant voice in his head imploring him to be stronger than his feelings. Dick’s not stronger than his feelings. Nothing is stronger than his feelings for Kory right now.

“Stop,” she chuckles, “I’m ok.” Dick drags his rough palms over his cheeks trying to quell the profusion of tears, but they won’t stop. His throat is so choked all he can do is gasp.

“Baby,” she says opening her arms to him.

Dick is so nervous he’ll hurt her. So paranoid he’ll sink too much pressure onto her mending flesh or bump something raw. Kory presses kisses into his hair and face like she did to Gar.

“How’re you holding up?” she croaks.

Dick can’t help but laugh. “I’m great,” he sniffs.

He’s overwhelmed. Somehow, over the last forty hours, the future he wants has coalesced into a clear image. He wants Kory. He wants a family. He wants safety. He wants love.

 _This is probably the wrong time to ask but,_ “we should move in together.”

Kory’s face betrays shock and pleasure. “You, me, and Gar?”

“And Rachel,” he adds.

“And Rachel?” she asks, face sinking, “Dick…a kid’s a lot of responsibility.”

“You’ve managed,” he says defensively.

“What is that supposed to mean,” she asks, voice cooling.

“Nothing, just Gar is great—”

“Gar _is_ great. Rachel’s damaged.”

“Kory, I’m not putting her back in the system.”

“So you’ve already made up your mind?” Dick huffs, trying to figure out how’s he’s the bad guy in this situation.

“Dick, Rachel is more than worthy of love, but we’re both full time law enforcement officials, and that’s during the day. She’s going to need—”

“We don’t have to be, not both of us.”

“What?”

“Kory,” he says taking her hand, “Why can’t we just be together like everyone else? I don’t want to see you get hurt again--”

“Dick this is insane.”

“Is it? Between the job and my trust fund—”

“Are you even hearing yourself? Dick, I am a trained Tamaranean warrior. I didn’t come to this planet to be barefoot in your kitchen feeding kids pb&j sandwiches. The minute my skin heals I’m putting back on the suit.”

“Kory—”

“No! This is the hunter incident all over again,” laughing in frustration.

“No,” he says louder than he means, “This is different!”

“How? How is it different?”

“This is _my_ life, Kory!” he shouts poking a hard finger into his chest. “All this running around hunting monsters through the dark, that’s the life I inherited when my parents died and left me with Bruce. This was never supposed to happen to you!”

Kory unconsciously leans away from him. Dick’s fists are balled so tightly that his knuckles snap.

“I hate it,” he hisses in a breaking whisper, “I can’t take you being out there in the line of fire. That was never supposed to be you.”

“Dick,” says cautiously, like she’s afraid he might snap.

Dick knots the hospital blankets in his hands. Kory starts and stops her sentence several times before she can articulate it.

“This is how it is,” she says finally, “I can’t sit around knowing that you’re out there fighting alone, any more than you can watch me do it. But I’m not giving this up.”

Dick looks at her pathetically. His eyes glassy and red, pleading silently with her. She turns away from him and calls Gar and Rachel back into the room, effectively blocking Dick from continuing on.

~***~

He turns off Rachel’s light and pokes his head in on Gar. Gar gives him a sleepy thumbs up from his safehouse bed. Dick turns down the light in the fancy, glass paneled living room, checks the locks, checks the security protocols. If there’s one thing he can trust it’s Bruce’s safety protocols. With everyone accounted for, the safehouse feels like home. He lets out the breath he’s been holding and drags his tired body back to the master bedroom. Kory’s probably right and he’s being overprotective. But he’d rather be overprotective of them now than risk losing them again. 

Kory sits at the vanity, beautiful, safe. He smiles at her from the doorway. Gar asked him once if he could have any superpower, what would it be? Looking at Kory, he wishes he could stop time. The warmth coming off her now has nothing to do with starfire. A deep fatigue hits him. He feels like he hasn’t slept in days, even though all of them spent most of the last two sleeping. 

Today was another long one. Rachel’s been sleeping and waking in disoriented fits all day. At around noon Rachel woke up screaming, darkness pulsing out into the living room sending the coffee table and couch _into_ the wall. Had Gar not stepped into the kitchen for a snack, he probably would have been thrown as well. To Dick’s surprise, as soon as he and Kory ran into the kitchen and found Gar alright, Kory ran to check on Rachel. He was so afraid that this threat to Gar would end with Kory sending Rachel away. Instead he entered Rachel’s room to find the girl close to Kory, the two of them whispering. Together they looked up to watch the darkness recede.

Rachel trusts Kory, already looks to Kory as the authority figure. She likes Gar too, he thinks. He noticed it in the hospital. The two of them don’t need to talk, they just get along. As he was signing Rachel and Gar out of the hospital, he watched Gar slide Rachel a piece of hard candy from his pocket. Popping it into her mouth, Rachel smiled. A real smile, with little curved teeth and a crinkled nose.

She’s calmer when Gar is around. She can be quiet, shut herself off, with him or Kory. Dick gets it. Sometimes it’s easier to put every away rather than out in the open. She’s quiet with Gar too, but Dick can tell that it’s not because she’s receding into herself. Maybe it’s because Gar is so talkative. It’s hard to linger on memories of trauma when Gar falls into an explanation of what Rachel’s missed in _Game of Thrones_ or the mechanics of _Overwatch_. 

Of course Rachel has her moments. Both Dick and Kory have been assaulted by the darkness at least twice a piece. Besides, there’s not a whole lot of glass left in the house, the mirror Kory is sitting in front of is the last mirror in the house. Still, having everyone here together...it’s nice.

_This is working._

He flops onto the bed. Kory finds the light switch on the edge of the mirror and a soft light washes over her. She makes a satisfied noise.

“Trust fund house isn’t that bad is it?” Dick asks drowsily rehashing a previous conversation.

“Just admit that you’re an idiot,” Kory says reaching over her shoulder to rub burn cream onto her back.

“Gimme that,” Dick says scrambling off the bed and snatching up the cream. “Star, admit that this is nice.”

Kory laughs.

“Of course. I always enjoy you rubbing me with things,” she purrs running her tongue over her teeth. 

“I meant all of us here in the house,” he says smoothing the cream in with gentle strokes. Kory looks back at him and sighs.

“You first,” she says.

Dick rolls his eyes. “I’m an idiot and I respect you as a warrior and I’m sorry about what I said after being awake for 40 hours when I thought I was gonna lose you,” he mumbles.

“Ok, I admit that Rachel’s cute and so are you,” Kory chuckles. “You respect me as a warrior?” she mocks, “aww, thanks Birdy.”

Dick rolls his eyes.

“Don’t start,” he snorts.

“Talk to me about the suit I saw in the Trigon illusion,” she says more seriously.

“I got a new suit,” he says eyebrows sinking over his eyes. “I outgrew Robin coming back from Nevada.”

“Oh yeah?”

Dick nods. Kory studies his expression in the mirror.

“It’s hard to explain but, I think for a long time I’ve been afraid of myself and who I was becoming. I think being away from you…” he shakes his head. “When I got out, I realized what I wanted and who I wanted to be.”

She reaches for his hand on the top of her shoulder. She’s proud of him, happy for him, loves him.

“Good for you, Dick,” she says earnestly. A weight lifts off both of them. “But you’re not going by Birdy though?” she quips with a smirk. Dick tugs her hair playfully. The noise Kory makes is gratifying. “Even I know what they say about boys who pull girls’ ponytails,” she flirts.

He folds his arms around her, careful not to bump her back, and nuzzles her curls.

“That they go by Nightwing now and that they love their girlfriends?”

“Something like that,” she smiles. “Nightwing,” she whispers bobbing her head, she shrugs in approval. He smiles.

“Kory, I wanna adopt Rachel,” he says still cuddling her.

Kory takes a long exhale. She’s looking at him in the reflection again. He’s looking back at her.

“Dick, you can’t run away when you have a kid,” she says rubbing her palms over his forearms and looking at his reflection.

“I know,” he says quietly. Kory looks at him for a long time.

“Okay,” she says, “If you’re ready, I am too.” He squeezes her tight. It’s time to start again, and for the first time, Dick feels ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you made it this far, thank you so much! Another big thanks to dasakuryo for being my beta!
> 
> Hi reader, I would love to know what your favorite part was! Tell me what made you scream, or laugh, or cry. What made you mad? Talk to me lovelies!


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